I got my first introduction to "The Wall" today. For starters, there was a 15-20 mph south wind, gusting to 30. So I knew they way back home would be brutal, but it turned out to be the least of my worries. The problem was I didn't fuel up before I left at about 11. I got up early, went to my daughter's soccer game, and all I had was a piece of toast....dumb! Probably didn't hydrate well either.
So I took off at normal-feeling pace, but had a huge tailwind so the splits were a bit low. Here's the first 6 miles: 8:11, 8:09, 8:23, 8:24, 8:27, 8:34. Perfectly normal long-run splits for me considering the first 2 were hugely aided and the next 4 were slightly aided.
Now coming back: 8:50, 9:10, 9:11, 9:24, 13:13, 11:12. So I was fighting the wind on the way back and at first attributed the slowness to that. Nope. Completely ran out of fuel. My legs felt like they were made of lead. The odd thing was that I was breathing easy, probably a decently low heart rate but zero use of my muscles. Felt pretty dehydrated too. At the 10.5 mark, I started walking and my legs were wobbly. At this point I would have called my wife for a ride home...if I brought my cellphone (lesson learned). Walked a half mile, then tried to run the final mile home. I managed to "run" it all and could only do it in 11 minutes! Wow, how am I ever gonna do a marathon, or even a half!?
Time to take it easy this next week and hopefully I learned my lesson about fueling/hydrating. Very humbling day after last weekend's long run went so great. Gave me more respect for the distance as well. I will start slower no matter what next time.
Weekly mileage: 36.0 | 
