24 miles of good running.

This months’ Runner’s World (the one with the Olympic runners on it) finally has some useful information in it. I’ve been so unimpressed with the magazine in the last few months, I haven’t even opened it, after reading the cover. They just continuously recycle the same 24 topics: Run your first 5K in 8 weeks, Train for blah blah blah, Lose weight doing these workouts. (like I need ot lose more weight). Anyway, I got the new one out of my mailbox yesterday, and actually sat in my car for a good 15 minutes perusing all the interesting stuff. In justr those 15 minutes I found tons of great stuff about the Olympic runners, not only Americans. Can’t wait to read it all Sunday afternoon. Anyway, I actually took some things from some of the little tips the 6 marathoners gave, and used them today. The most interesting I found so far (to me) was one from… hold on, let me get out of bed, and get it… Ok, Page 34 – Russell (3rd place Women’s Olympic Marathon Trials) gives this tip:

STRONG FINISH: Add some speed to your long runs. Step up the last 3rd of your run by 10-15 seconds per mile. In a 12 mile run at 8 min/mile do the last 4 at 7:45. This helps you hold speed even when you’re fatigued.

But I tweaked that a bit, as I couldn’t quite remember the exact tip, and just knew it was about picking up the pace at the end. I’ll adjust next week.

So the run started further north this time, and 20 miles were supported, so as we needed 24, we met at 4:55am to get in 4. This meant a ridonkulous 3:36am alarm, a 9 minute snooze, then get the hell up and force a large bowl of Kashi cereal with fresh blueberries into your mouth. Masticate and swallow. For you non-runners, you should try force eating at 3:50am sometime. It’s tougher than you would imagine.

I won’t bore you with the run details, except, it was hilly for a good half of it, and I felt pretty good all the way. Definitely got my hydration back in check and had no issues. There was a 3 mile stint where my energy dipped a bit around 14 or so, but as with endurance running, you’re bound to feel great, then bad, then good, then horrible, then good again, then bad, then great... so just keep running.

Ken clocked us on his GPS at 24.07 miles. This time he wasn’t super anal diligent about stopping it at every water stop, but, we're pretty sure the 24 miles took right around 3:20-3:24. With 2 miles to go, I picked up the pace to a sub 7 minute pace and powered in. Felt good to stretch the legs! Apce varied around 7:45 - 8:30 based on terrain. (not including my last two speed miles)

I heard a horrible rumor during breakfast that next week’s long run is in Georgetown??? The horrible part of it, is that it’s 35 miles away (and a 45 minute drive) for me to Georgetown (google maps confirmed), and if I’m going to start my run at 4:55am to get my 4 miles in before a 5:30 start… yeah, you do the math. Looks like I’ll be getting a hotel room up there somewhere or I’ll be getting up at 3am?? Nuh uh. Oh hell no. I sure hope the rumor is incorrect.

Do I need a passport to travel that far north?
Is that where those toll roads I’ve heard about are?
Anyone up for carpooling? 70 miles of gas is mucho expensivo.

Then again, it’s just a rumor, but a truly horrible one for me.