The Road to Hell

As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. My intention for last week was to post at least once during the week so my post long run post (say that 5 times fast, huh?) would not be so long. Obviously that didn't happen. And let me tell you, I've seen the road to hell and am pretty sure it's about 15 miles long. More on that later.

So my midweek runs last week were 3-7-4. Really not too much to report on those. They were all done on the treadmill at a pretty easy pace, generally somewhere between 10:30-11:00 per mile. With the lower leg pains I'd been having, I didn't want to push things with speedwork, as I was afraid the extra pounding would make things worse. That plan seemed to work out pretty well, because the lower leg pains haven't been an issue of late, even on the long run Sunday. More on that later.

I have to say that during the whole week, I was pretty apprehensive about the 15 miler. I'd never run that far before (the closest I'd come was the half marathon) and it was messing with my head a bit. Could I do it? How hard would it be?

During the course of the midweek runs, I'd developed a new soreness. Not pain, mind you, just muscle soreness kind of near the top of my right thigh and wrapping around to just under the bum. I'm not sure, but after having talked to my sister, it sounds like it could be my right hip flexor. Normally, once it gets warmed up it's ok, but it gets kind of tight otherwise. This probably added to the concerns I was having about the long run.

So Sunday morning came, and it turns out we all slept in. Which as fine because we all needed the sleep. So it looked like an afternoon run was in the cards. By the time I started my run, it had warmed up to just over 20 degrees or so. I mapped out my run on mapmyrun.com and headed out. I'd decided ahead of time that instead of listening to music as per usual, I was going to listen to some podcasts instead. After all, I was going to be out for 3 hours or so (my unofficial goal was to average 12 minute miles), and it might be nice to hear some actual voices talking rather than just music. So I loaded up a playlist with more than enough podcast goodness and started running.

The first 8 miles or so weren't too bad, just the usual. My plan was to gel at 2, 7, and 12, and I had both a bottle of water and a bottle full of Gatorade with me so I could hydrate throughout the run. I know from prior runs that I probably wasn't drinking enough, so I wanted to make sure that wasn't going to be a problem.

Things got tougher as I got past 9 miles. I was REALLY looking forward to mile 12 when I could walk while I gelled. As it was, I took a quick walk at 10 miles and drank some Gatorade. As I got to 12, I was extremely grateful for the opportunity to walk, and even ended up walking .10 of a mile as I drank and gelled. By this point, I was just feeling whipped. My legs were tired and sore, and I just wanted to be DONE. But I continued on. I actually took walk breaks at miles 13 and 14, walking for the first .10 of each mile then picking up with the run again.

I finally made it home after the 15 miles, and I felt like crying; that run was SO hard. How am I going to go for 11 MORE miles in just over 7 weeks? I thought. To this day I'm not sure how I'm going to do it, just that it will get done somehow. I think up until that long run I was under the illusion that if I followed the training plan it would be ok, that things would work out. That 15 miles last weekend really humbled me. The marathon is going to be HARD. No matter how much work you put in, no matter how much you've prepared, it is still going to be HARD. PERIOD.

On a side note, as I sat there trying to recover, I wiped my face with my hand and it felt like I had dirt on my face. I tasted it, and it turns out it was VERY salty. My guess is that part of the reason the run took such a toll is that I lost too much salt. I did a better job hydrating, but I still think (and my sister agrees) that I probably still need to drink more. I'll give that a shot this weekend on my 16 miler.

I don't have my Garmin with me, but I know that I finished in the 2:50's with an average pace of 11:31 per mile, even with the walking breaks. I guess that's not too bad, as it's only 4 seconds per mile off race pace.

I did a 4 mile run on the treadmill on Tuesday night, with a 1 mile warmup (GASP!) at 5.5 mph, and then the final 3 miles at 6.0 mph. It felt pretty good, and my aches seemed to go away while I was running. Tonight is an 8 miler on the mill.

Wish me luck.