I was planning my longest run of 18 miles. I knew Flo did 23 last week, so I figured that this week she'd drop down somewhere around 18 miles. I thought about asking her when she was going to start on Saturday. Then I saw the weather forecast. It said, 32 FREAKING DEGREES at the normal start time. That was cold enough for me, especially with fact that the weather has been in the 50s, particularly when I run later in the day.Flo then messaged me and asked me when I was starting. She was able to convince me to begin an hour earlier at 6:30. I looked at the temperature at that time and it was only going to be a degree colder than at 7:30 anyway. It wouldn't hit the 40s until after 10 AM anyway. My other big concern was how dark it would be. I wasn't sure because I'm never up that early.
I arrived early and was the only one there. It was definitely cold, but actually I thought it would feel even colder. I took no chances with dressing. Since it was unseasonable, I went with my UA ColdGear top, tights, gloves and a headband to cover my ears. With these type of temperatures during the winter, I might not be wearing quite so much.
It was dark at the start, but getting light out. It wasn't dark enough to need a headlamp, which was great since I found out this morning that my battery in it was dead. Flo arrived a couple minutes late, but it didn't matter since I certainly wasn't going anywhere. I was huddled in my warm car at Riverview Park until we started the run.
We didn't waste any time out in the cold. Once our watches were ready to go, we took off. The first mile was nice and comfortable. Flo and I chatted for a bit, discussing a lot of the usual stuff. We talked some about next week's Runner's World Hat Trick. She's not running it partly because of the price. That's why I didn't plan on initially running it.
I felt okay as we got to the boat launch. The path then goes from being paved to a stone/dirt path. It is pretty uneventful, especially this early in the morning. The pace did pick up here and the path is narrow, so I tucked in behind Flo. As we went faster, we talked less. We decided to turn around at the 3 mile point. My watch was actually at 3.11 miles when we made the turn. I was amazed that I didn't look at my watch until almost the 2.5 mile point in the run.
Flo was definitely moving at a good clip. It wasn't a pace I couldn't handle, but it was certainly a little fast for me to run 18 miles at. I backed off a bit, but kept Flo a few feet in front of me. I figured that when we got back, I'd have a nice rest.
One thing that sucked at this point was the weather. My chest was actually a little cold. My gloves and headband where making me hot though and producing quite a bit of sweat. I didn't want to take them off though because I could still feel the cold air coming against me. At least it wasn't too windy. That is the worst thing when it comes to winter running.
We saw one of the other BCR women turn around in front of us. She was wearing orange, so I thought it might be Kim, because she often wears bright colors. I got confused though because we weren't gaining much ground on her and I know Kim isn't all that fast. It turns out it was Sarah, so that made more sense. Even when we passed Sarah, I didn't recognize her with her hat on.
Flo seemed like she slowed a little in the last mile as we passed Sarah. I caught up and finished on her heels. Apparently we didn't slow at all though. In fact, we ran much faster. It was a blistering 7:16. It was weird because it seemed easy.
As I was hanging on to Flo, I was already wondering who else there might be to run with when the main group got together. I knew running Flo's pace too much longer would kill me, especially in the last few miles.
After a quick Gatorade break, we were off and running with the whole group. Sarah said she was doing 20+ miles and she runs fast enough, so I let Flo take off and I just ran with Sarah.
This was great. Having someone to talk to makes everything fly by. The pace was more comfortable for me, so we were able to chat a lot. I don't see her too often, so that was good to catch up. We talked about training, my health, work and the Runner's World races among other things. At one point, I told her how sick in the head I am when it comes to running. I can do a hard long run and drive home and be jealous of someone that I see running.
As we got a few miles out, my watch started to get messed up. The bezel is too sensitive and my sweat can make it go crazy. It went back to the satellite setting. It showed my next mile when we hit it, so I knew it was still working. I took it off and then when I got to the correct setting, I made sure to lock the bezel. It was fine the rest of the run.
Sarah said that she didn't have enough nutrition, so we decided that we would turn around at the 4 mile mark. That was fine with me. It would get me to 14 miles when we reached Riverview Park again. I told her that I haven't even bothered doing anything other than drinking this time during my training. I didn't even do any drinking at all during my 16 miler. That was tough.Sarah tripped as we were near the boat launch. That was interesting because we were actually just talking about falling on the trail. At least she didn't take a spill. She did need to stop briefly though. I kept going, but slowed down. I hate completely stopping during a run.
We got back to Riverview and I felt good. I was worried about running so much on hard pavement during this run. I think having new shoes were a big help. I sure broke them in in a big way this week. The sun was bright as we reached our cars. In addition to getting some Gatorade, I decided to take off my gloves and headband. It seemed to be getting warm and I was sweating a lot by now.
Starting back up after stopping briefly is hard, especially this late in the run. We decided to run in the other direction. I was intrigued by this because I had never gone that way before. I had run that area on the other side of the river, but never linked between the two.
That first mile out was tough. Suddenly we were in the shade and my hands were freezing. I tried blowing on them and putting them between my tights and shorts. After about a mile, my hands finally warmed up. By the way, I haven't run in winter gear since 2009, so I was glad that everything still fit me.
We finally got to a point along the canal path where the sun was shining. We had the option to run there or go in shade, obviously we took the warmer sun. Two miles into this segment and we turned around. This was the longest I had run to this point. I told Sarah that I would probably be sore from this point on. That is usually how it works.
Some soreness did creep in, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe it was the new shoes or maybe the slower miles. Whatever the case, the last two miles were bearable.
I'm so weird when it comes to numbers. With a quarter mile to go, I saw that the overall pace was 8:15. I didn't want it to drop any lower, so I took off with Sarah's permission. It was great to then finish up. I felt bad that she still had 8 miles to do alone. Those are the toughest miles too. I told her that I felt surprisingly good and could've run another 2 miles. I wasn't about to push it though.
The 16 miles alone two weeks ago were awful. They seemed like they would never end. This run was awesome on the other hand. Running with others makes the miles just breeze by. Although I ran 18 miles and for almost two and a half hours, it didn't seem anywhere close to that long. I was grateful to have Flo and Sarah to run with today and make things better.
Since I'm only running a half marathon, 18 miles is long enough for my longest training run. I'm up and over 60 miles this week. I think this might've actually been my most mileage ever. Looking back, the highest I see is 57 miles. I'm not going to do a true taper, but I'll definitely back off over the next three weeks. My body is beat up and a little extra rest would be a huge plus. This has been one of my toughest weeks ever, but I'm glad it is over.
I'll be off tomorrow. I'm going to the Eagles game. I'm not sure where or how I'll be running on Monday. I guess some of that depends on how my body feels. If I'm okay, maybe I'll do a short speedwork session.
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