My longest run...ever

Some days...I just shake my head and wonder how I even get through most days. I can be a bit slow in the ol' brain at times and that causes interesting (or down right stupid) things to happen.


The plan today was to run 14 miles total...with 8 miles at HR 160 or so and the other 6 as part of my warm up and cool down. That's what I thought about and that's what I set out to do.

Last week I felt a bit ill...pretty far from home on my 12 mile run so, I decided that I'd work off of a loop that is close to my house. I knew the loop was 4-5 miles or so...i didn't know *exactly* how far but I thought it was a good loop that I could do 2 or less loops of it for 8 miles. I drove it. It was 4.6 miles in total for the loop. Cool...I do a three mile warm up, and then run less than 2 loops and have part of the 2nd loop be my cool down with some more mileage tacked on.

Problem was...i wasn't thinking when I was driving or contemplating exactly this loopyness. So...what do I do? I mark out how far 4 miles on my loop is...and only drive it one time. Therefore...I've set myself up to run 8.6 miles. First loop 4.6 miles...and I get to the second loop.. all i know is where the 4 mile bailout point is. Basically, not thinking clearly about the total distance when I drove it to begin with.


This miscalculation actually doesn't hit me until i'm at mile 7.6 (slow in the brain this A.M.)...and I start to think about where the supposed 'end' of my 8 miles is. I've been monitoring my watch and have realized that i'm running rather fast for me (so cool)...so when I start to think about what time it should be about at the end of 8 miles if i'm doing roughly 9 min/miles (or less)...I realize that i only have 3 minutes to get to the end of 8 miles...yet the 'end' of my marked out route is...wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy farther than 3 minutess away.

My thought to myself:

"What is going on?, uh oh...silly girl...you didn't think through this whole one loop being 4.6 miles thing did ya and then you only marked out the next 4 miles...therefore you are set up to do 8.6 miles...doh!"

So here's the conversation in my head :

"Well I could just 'guess' where the end at 8 miles is...you don't really want to run 8.6 miles do ya? We can just drive it after and figure out total distance and time."

My other thought :

"Just run the silly extra 0.6 miles...and do the math with your watch when you are done...suck it up...ya goofed, it's not the end of the world and when you run the 1/2 marathon you will be running further than 8 miles...so just deal with it, you can adjust your cool down from 3 total miles to 2.6 miles, but that's all you can compromise "

The second thought won.

So for the 8.6 miles I ran it in 1:17:05 avg HR 161

Do a little math (correctly this time)...that's 8:58 min/miles on average!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it's actually sub that, as I know my first two miles were 9:10's....wooohooo!! So exciting to me!

In the end i ran a total of 14.2 miles...the farthest I've ever run. :-D

I felt really good...actually great until the cool down...and then the lactic acid decided to talk to me...as well as my feet. Yowch. Took one gel around mile 6...seemed alright on the stomach. And considering I ate dinner at 11pm last night...and ate frightening food...a turkey ruben and fries(i love sauerkraut...but I wasn't sure if my running stomach would like that the next day)...i'm amazed that I didn't feel yucky running. I've learned that the night before long run dinners can be fine or not fine...and there is no rhyme or reason that I've found so far with things settling or not settling down the next day. So strange.

Just two weeks til Hartford! Exciting.