LM warmup (10 reps), 26 miles in 4:00:23, 9:14/mi, HR 158, w/ 3650' of elevation gain. Back on the long run horse today and it about killed me. Its been 3 weeks since my last long run (coincidentally, that was the R2R 50 which didn't go so well), so I really needed to get this in and knew it was going to hurt. Goal was to get between 20 and 26 in but I really wanted to get the full 26 in if at all possible, and needed to throw in some hills to get my hill legs back. Mission accomplished. First third was easy effort and I actually managed to keep things fairly easy. Focused on running the hills no matter what pace that brought, and I actually managed it. This probably overworked the legs a bit earlier than I should have, but I was going out to get the distance in and to really torture the legs so they'd remember how to run hills. Second half was some logging roads and some single-track I found. The Nicholson horse trail system runs thru the area and I finally found a trailhead, which was nice. The trail was highly technical and I nearly took headers multiple times. Even going downhill, my trail paces were in the 10-12 minute mile range. Thankfully, the dry/warm weather dried the mud so it was a deep soft mushy loam, but that really took some effort to run through. Got lost a bit here, and was navigating using my general sense of location, the sun, and hoping to pop out on a fire-road so I didn't have to retrace steps back up the steep single-track, and I did manage to somehow take the right combination of trails to find my way back to the road home. At this point, I was one big climb and lots of downhill away from the end of the run. I was also low on water and my legs were feeling pretty shot. The remaining third+ of the run was pretty brutal. Lots of "power hiking" which means stumbling up the hill a tad faster than walking, and rationing my water as well as possible to make it last. Got within 2 miles of the house and thankfully a neighbor was out working in their yard, so I begged for some water and they kindly obliged. I probably would've made it back, but really didn't want to find out. The last miles were slow with numerous short walk breaks but I got the miles in and collapsed back at the house. Glad I don't do these too often. The thing that really worries me? I essentially ran 1/2 of the 50 miler (distance and elevation change-wise) today and was completely shot. How the heck am I going to make it thru another 24+ miles? Guess I have another month to work on that. | 