2/22 Long Run

Saturday's run was one of those runs that when asked, you can say emphatically; "It was a GOOD run." I finally feel like I'm starting to settle back into the long run saddle. A very good 15 miler, with more at that distance to come.

I normally run long on Saturday, but with Val running Saturday mornings that's not really going to fly. I'm probably going to have to move run days around, which may be a challenge. We'll see.

I'm also considering going back to 4 days a week instead of 5. I'm going to try 5 for a few more weeks and see if everything goes OK as I try for 40ish again. I think 4 days a week gives me more recovery time, but I don't think I can safely get the mileage I think I'm going to need/want to do better on the marathon. And I'm not completely convinced that the problem (tiredness, involuntary fallback weeks, etc.) is with 5 days a week.

My Mom was over on Saturday (and through Sunday) so Val and I got a date night in. Even if that involved some errand running, we had a nice dinner at Lombardis, and came home and had a really nice talk with Mom. That meant I stayed up a little later than I would have liked given the 5am wake up for the run so we could all have breakfast together (at a normal time.)

Got up as scheduled 5, didn't even mumble around in bed. Just got up, did the normal morning thing, grabbed my bag of running stuff and snuck downstairs to change. Apparently I was quiet enough because Toby didn't even come down to check on me till I was almost dressed. (Apparently Val woke up just as I was walking out the door and thought I was still in bed and running late. :) )

Took Toby out to pee, finished getting together, had some OJ and then went back out with Toby. The predicted rain, which wasn't there 10 minutes previously, was starting. When we went back in I added my jacket to the tie downs on my fuel belt and got on the road. By the time I hit my start point 5 minutes away I had my jacket on. I'm glad I brought it, especially for that first hour in the dark and rain.

Once I got all my systems into sync, about a mile or so, the run just happened. I seemed to want to run in the low 140s heart rate wise, and had to constantly keep an eye on things and try to get back to where I like to be in the low 50s. The heart rate graph looks like a saw blade with all the little ups and downs. It would be nice if you could adjust things like minimum hr on the fly without messing things up.

Had a couple of moments where I could hear over my low music that everything got into a rhythm, foot beats, shake of water bottle, shuffle of jacket. Sometimes it bothers me, today it was comforting and zen.

Had to find a tree at around 7 miles in, something that only seems to happen on the training runs. I didn't have any need to go during the marathon. I wonder if I'm doing something differently? The wonders of being a man. As one of the hosts of a recent Runners Lounge podcast pointed out: "I'm a man, the world is my bathroom." :)

I got tired of the damp nylon of my jacket constantly switching screens on my Gamin, so I locked the screen. And then either because of a bug, or because I did something wrong Garmy managed to go to sleep. At around the same time my iPhone lost it's Pandora connection so it took me a while to change stations to get tunes again and then notice that the watch wasn't recording. When I restarted it it didn't restart in the Heart Rate Workout that it had been, now it was a generic workout and I had to watch the Hr max myself.

My thighs started letting me know they were going to be sore the next day around mile 11, but it was more just mumbling than anything else. Everything else worked great for a change, all my joints kept quiet, nothing that wasn't just my body shaking itself out.

Finally finished with a Garmin total of 15.09 in 2:31:59 (10:04/mile). Awesomely, 8 of those miles were sub 10. 149 average bpm. That sleep mode issue may have lost 0.07 miles or so. Was able to do the whole run with no GU, as well, just a glass of OJ to start the day.