Long Run From Coach's House

It's been interesting this summer and spring, not being in the fall marathon group for the Gazelles. I've rather enjoyed the fact that I won't have to do those really long long runs in August and September. It does set the non-marathoners a little apart from the marathoners, but that's okay with me. I'm sort of a "tweener," doing long runs up to 12 or 14 miles, but skipping the longer stuff until it comes around for Freescale training. Today, for instance, the fall marathoners get to do 16 miles, leaving from Gilbert's house in far south Austin, and doing a long out and back route. The rest of us chose our own distances.

We all got going right on time from G's house, on a morning with the usual Austin weather. Volel joined us this morning, coming back as usual from some sort of injury. He said he'd run whatever distance I was running. Also with us were Amy and Shannon, who wanted to do between 10 and 12 miles. I suggested that we go 12, turning around at the water stop about 6 miles into the route. Richard zoomed ahead to run with Jan, Patrick, Sean, and all those guys.

The early miles felt really nice and comfortable. The route was hilly, with lots of sneaky long inclines or declines, but no really terribly steep hills like a couple of weeks ago. Our pace was pretty solid for this sort of run, and we reached the first water stop (Powerade stop) about 3.2 miles in, at 9:17/mile pace. A quick little 1:20 for Powerade, and we were off for the next leg.

It was fun talking about anything and everything with our little gang, and it was fun to have Volel along. We reached and passed the 5 mile mark, and Amy and Shannon both said they felt good, so they'd go on ahead to the turnaround with us. The turnaround was at 5.9 miles, and the increased hills in that second section had slowed our pace to 9:20/mile. Our water stop was slightly longer here, 2:29, as I took a GU, and everyone else got plenty of water.

Turning back, we noticed immediately a very long and steady uphill section or two, which was an unpleasant surprise. I was feeling pretty good still, but that may not have been the predominant feeling amongst the four of us. We reached the last water stop, 8.62 miles, and our average pace had dropped a little more, to 9:25/mile. The heat was taking a little toll, but mainly this was due to topographic challenges.

I tried to rally the troops a bit for the last stretch, and we got moving a lot quicker to the finish. We clicked off the next two miles at 9:16/mile pace, which was a lot better than we had been going. There wasn't nearly as much conversation by now, but we were still in a nice pack. When we got to Wm. Cannon Drive again, just over a mile from Gilbert's house, I decided to push a little harder still, and I slowly pulled away from the other three folks on the last two tough hills of the course. My last 1.2 miles were at 8:20/mile pace, a solid pickup over the end of the run. I worked hard over that last stretch, but it felt good to push like that on the hills.

Overall, I clocked 11.82 miles at an average pace of 9:17/mile, so I had a negative split on the run. With the water stop time included, the pace dropped to 9:44/mile. Either way, it was a good solid long run. Pacewise, I think we were about where we should be, and it was sure nice to have three people to run with who were so compatible at that pace.

I had to leave pretty quickly afterward to go help out and lead the other Gazelles in their Saturday stretch at RunTex, so I didn't get to hang out and chat too much. On the way up to RunTex, I saw the folks finishing up their 16 milers, and there was a pretty big gap between people over those last 3 miles. I'll be interested to hear about some of those runs later.

The stretching was fun, with a lot of new folks joining some of us old timers, and it felt great to work out the kinks. I picked up the marathon relay packets after that, and headed home. Time to go and watch the Tour de France and Wimbledon now for the rest of the morning!