The Longest Run of the Training Cycle

This past week my training schedule called for the longest run of this season's cycle. We planned to run about 3 hours and 45 minutes, but I ended up clocking about 4 hours and 5 minutes all told. Partly this was because I didn't stop my watch at any of our water and fueling stops (the clock doesn't stop during races so I don't pause my Garmin during breaks) and part of this was because I had a bit of a meltdown in the final couple of miles.

Earlier in the week my TNT team changed up our normal Tuesday night practice to do the Urban Challenge, a scavenger hunt style run being put on by one of the local running stores. We definitely pushed our pace more than usual in our efforts to get as many raffle tickets from the venues on the map as possible. Most of the places just handed us our tickets but a few places made us work for them -- one place made us dance, and one place required either 5 burpees or 5 jumping jacks followed by 5 push ups. After the race, they had a beer garden set up for some refreshing beverages for purchase while they called out the raffle winners. None of us had any of the winning tickets, but it was still a lot of fun.

That being said, I definitely felt sore the next couple of days. Since I'm on a relatively conservative training plan, I haven't been doing regular speedwork during this cycle. The good news is that I am feeling pretty healthy body wise (knock on wood) and while I've had a few aches and pains here and there I haven't been dealing with IT band issues or shin splints or groin pain or an aching piriformis. The quicker paces of many parts of Tuesday night's run did mean that my quads had been sore and my hip flexors were still feeling a little janky by the time Saturday rolled around.

Even so, I was determined to get through this Saturday's long run. My friend Christy and I had been texting all week (about being sore and about other running things, including camelbaks, fueling strategies, and anxiety about the time and distance of this longest training run). It was her longest run to date, and she tackled it like a rock star. I ended up being the one who hit the wall and fell apart.

The first two thirds of the run were pretty good. It was hot (for Alaska) and there was absolutely no shade where we were running for miles at a time. The sun was beating down on us the whole time and since we are so close to the solstice it was already up high by 8am. I was sticking to my fueling strategy of taking calories every 40-50 minutes, even though that meant some of them were consumed when we turned around at the Anchorage landfill (delightful!), and I was mostly just enjoying the day. I was hot and not exactly comfortable, but things were going okay. And I had good company. We were chatting and singing Prince songs to each other.

Things went okay until they did not.

I could feel myself starting to bonk a little bit and decided to take a GU a bit ahead of schedule. This one did not go down well. I couldn't even finish it. The rest of the run my stomach was alternating from feeling wobbly to roiling. Around mile 16, I also felt like I was starting to broil, and it took all my willpower that wasn't being used to keep putting one foot in front of the other to not suck down the entire remaining contents of my camelbak. But I got through it. My friend Heather, who is one of our coaches, stuck with me when I opted to switch to a 3:1 run walk interval, and she only let me take an extra minute of walking once. Her positivity (she cheered me, serenaded me, and distracted me) kept me from totally losing it. I only cried for a minute instead of for two solid miles. She got me to the end of the run. All told I logged 19.5 miles.

And at the end of the run, we had bubbly.  I could only have a few sips because my stomach was still off. But by brunch I was feeling less disastrous and was able to have coffee and a bit of food. No more fruit smoothie GUs for me.

I can do this. I will do this. But I'm ready for some tapering.