Monday, October 18, 2010

Trail Run - 10/19/10 - 14 miles - 03:00

I am less than two weeks away from becoming a marathoner.  Holy crap.

Sunday was our dress rehearsal.  We got to meet an hour later than usual, at 8AM but luckily they didn't make us go out in waves (I have no idea what time I'll actually start the race).  We were to wear what we plan to wear marathon day and take any liquids and fuels we'd be using.  We were also supposed to get up early to best simulate race day but there was no way in hell I was getting up at 4AM when I didn't need to leave the house until after 7, I'd just fall back asleep.  So I got up at six.  I still should have left a little earlier since the Bethesda Arts Festival meant I had to drive around in circles to get to the usual parking lot at the beginning of the Capital Crescent Trail.

We had a group five strong, no coach since ours had just run a marathon the day before.  But it was an out and back on a course we'd run a dozen times so it was no problem.  We ran as a group down to Georgetown, taking brief walk breaks every two miles or so to get some fluids and a quick bathroom break at mile 5.  Somewhere around mile 8 my right knee started bugging me again, after last week's great run I thought this knee thing was behind me.  It didn't really slow me down any and was just a minor annoyance more than anything else but I can't imagine having to deal with it for an additional 12 miles.  I had it strapped but I think the patellar strap may have done more harm than good since the pressure point of the strap is especially sore now.

We ended up finishing in three separate groups, I finished in exactly three hours (including at least one of the stops where I forgot to turn off the Garmin, I think we actually ran about 2:57).  The idea was to start slow then gradually speed up for the second half of the run but I knew out of the gate that wasn't happening especially since the second half is all up hill.  Looking at the splits we kept a steady pace the entire run which works for me.  I struggled a bit more than on the previous week's 20 but overall it wasn't a bad run.  I have a few more things to figure out before race day, but there's plenty of time.  12 days, 16 hours and 8 minutes worth...

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