14 miles at 5:50am. Weather=hot and very humid, dark then sunny.
Ran with Tim and Britt today. As we were starting out on the run I realized I might be in trouble because my best half is 1:35 / best marathon is 3:35 and none of the people in my finish time showed up today. Britt is 1:29 half/ 3:19 marathon and Tim is like 1:22 half/ 3:04 marathon.
The first four miles were slow and in the dark. Couple funny things happened. We had been laughing at Tim because last week he ran by himself ahead of us and saw a totally nude woman walking on the trail in the dark. He thought he was hallucinating. So then today we were running with him and he goes "What the heck is that?!" Up ahead there are all these swarming lights on the trail. It was completely dark except for my headlamp and those lights. Britt said, "Those are cyclists! Good thing we were here to tell you or otherwise the story this week was that you saw a UFO on the trail and you thought you were hallucinating!"
So then a ways later -still complete darkness- we're running through this portion that borders an old cemetery. We're making fun of Tim again saying maybe that nude woman he saw last week was a ghost from the cemetery... when suddenly from behind me there's this wooshing noise and leaves moving... and it's coming up fast on my left side... this white object passing within one foot from my head... making all this noise... the adrenaline starts rushing and I start freaking, scream LOUD. Britt screams too. Tim made some kind of "awww" noise. And it turns out to be a startled bird of some kind that was sitting on the side of the trail and flew past us flapping right in front of our faces. In the dark, we just had no idea at first. Ha, ah!
Ok. Fun and games are over. Sun is up. Miles 4-8. We decide to go a route off the trail that Britt knows. It goes through some neighborhoods and we can get water on the golf course. She sped up to 7:30's. I barely am keeping up. There are also really long steady hills throughout this route. It's worse for me because I don't know how long these hills are or where the water is. I start getting discouraged at the end of mile 8 and the two of them are speeding up even faster. I fall behind... and suddenly they stop. They were speeding up because the water was right there. Heck, if I had known that I would have been speeding up too! It sucks to not know the route! I couldn't focus like I normally can when I know where I'm going. If you know the route, you know exactly how much energy you can expend at each phase. Not knowing reminds me of track workouts in HS. The coach says run 1 mile as fast as you can but you're trying to figure out what they are going to make you do next because that determines how fast you really should go on this first mile.
So then we decide to go back down to the trail via the infamous "Hidden Road". This is .7 mile long road that is 8% grade. I don't know how the two of them could go that fast down this thing. I fell about 100 yards behind by the time we reached the trail. You know you've been watching alot of olympics when you see this gap and you think "Runner Lindsey has alot of "work" to do to catch up to the leaders".... So I did the work and caught up. Now we're in my stomping ground here on the trail. We ran miles 10, 11 and 12 at about 7:45ish. I actually got ahead of the two of them for a portion because I knew there was cold water and I couldn't wait... like a horse to stables, man.
Then we started going back into the neighborhoods up this long hill that's about 4-5% grade and 1 mile long. I had my music in. I knew the route. I'm hanging on by a thread but I'm in a zone working it. Suddenly, Tim, who is running next to me, screams really loud at this car that he thinks is driving too fast past us. It was shocking and kinda scared me. I lost my focus. It was a delicate thing to begin with so it wasn't his fault. My focus was a house of cards! So anyways, I made it up the hill at 7:45 pace but at the end of mile 12 I bonked. I fell behind again. I got to this water stop and started walking. A car was speeding and I couldn't even muster up the momentum to speed walk to get out of the way. The car had to slow down. It was at that point I said to Tim and Britt, "You guys go right on without me. I'm going to chug it in straight to the store and call the final two miles a cool down". They asked if I was going to do another 4 around the park to make it 18 like we had planned. Um, no. I'm not.
I proceeded on mile 13 by myself to do an incredibly difficult 9:18 pace. Tim and Britt disappeared in the distance ahead of me. Then I see this other group ahead. It's the 9:00/m pace group lead by my friend, Matt. They started at 6:30 today and were doing 11. Only 1 mile to go to the store. I think I'll run it with them... I hope I can keep up!
Yeah, right! I get up there and they say hello. Matt asks, "what's wrong, Linds?" I say, as I fiddle with my iPod, "I'm trying to DJ myself so I have enough energy to make it back to the store." Matt says, "Hey I'll take you to the store." "Thank you, Matt! I'll follow." I actually got a little bit encouraged because I thought he'll go maybe 8:00 pace and I'll finish on a much better note than bonking all the way home. It'll be tough, but I can do 8:00." I'm really pep talking myself about 8:00. HA! The dude gets down to 7:00 pace and he's yelling at me to keep up. 1 mile home. Seriously, Matt? I couldn't even find a good enough song for this crap. 7:00 pace when I'm bonking and all I've gone on my ipod is Kelly Clarkson singing, "What doesn't kill makes you stronger... " I wanted to slap her and tell her to shut the hell up! Final mile = 7:20.
What a day! I actually feel great now though. My legs are sore like I was lifting 300 pound weights but no injuries to speak of. Oh, and my big toenail is gone. Another story... but GONE!
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Corrected the milage to 15 miles after talking to Tim. I forgot to push start on my watch at one point and I was off on the milage. | 