Longer Run [Entered 8/27/05]

Saturday, after much discussion, those of us "Tweeners," who aren't marathoning this fall, but want something more substantial on the weekends than 7-10 miles, settled on doing 14-15 miles on the Freescale marathon course. I had to drop a cooler of Gatorade along the route for the marathoners, so I met up with the whole gang down at RunTex at 5:00am, and carpooled 8 people with me in the big truck up to the start at Gateway shopping center. Yep, 3 in the "way back" third seat, and 4 skinny runners stacked in the middle seat, with Frank riding shotgun up front with me. It's nice that we're so friendly, huh?

It was warm and humid, but I guess I'm getting used to it a bit, because it didn't seem to bother us much. We were soaked when we finished, but while we were running it was just fine. Anyway, we started out with Patrick and Jan, who are doing Chicago Marathon in October, Amy, Alex and myself. Jan planned to do the full scheduled 22 miles, and the rest of us would peel off the course at 14 miles or so. We quickly settled into a nice pace and rhythm, and tried to control it when the course sloped downhill. It stayed really dark for quite a while, but that was a good thing. After getting off of Burnet and the fast-moving traffic there, we were cruising along when Gilbert pulled up alongside us. He told Alex that he should go ahead and run faster, and of course Alex didn't need to be told that more than once. He was off like a shot, and except for the first two water stops, we didn't see him again until we were finished. When we got to Gilbert's truck and the first water stop at 4.75 miles, we caught the faster group ahead of us, but they moved on about when we got there. 2 minutes later, we were hydrated again, and I took a GU while we were there.

Splits for first miles: 9:43, 9:26, 9:34, 9:13, and .75 miles at 9:28 pace. Overall, a nice relaxed 9:29 pace for the first chunk of the course.

The next section was along the railroad tracks and then down Shoal Creek. It's a nice stretch, especially when the sun isn't up yet, and we enjoyed running through there. We got going a little fast at one point, but we managed to dial it back pretty efficiently. We could see the next group up ahead about 100-200 yards, and that caused us to push a little more than we might have otherwise. No harm, though. It was during this stretch that the subject of the James Bond movie marathon on AMC network came up. Okay, I brought it up. But, it turns out that Patrick is a fan of the series as well. It got strange when we were singing the theme song from "Goldfinger," along with some of the other theme songs, and I think it was about to drive Amy crazy. That craze passed soon enough, I suppose, but that's what can happen on these super early runs sometimes. When we reached the second water stop, and Gilbert's and Henry's trucks, we again caught the group ahead of us, but that's the last we saw of them for the day. Some more Gatorade, and another 2 minutes later, we were off again. So far, so good. I was feeling particularly good, just hanging out and running with my friends.

Splits for next bits: 9:10, 9:01, 9:22, 8:53, and a .2 mile piece at 9:20. Overall pace down to 9:19 through 8.9 miles.

Patrick and Jan pulled ahead of us along 45th Street, as we took a short rest stop at a friendly gas station, but Amy and I jumped right back onto pace as we negotiated the construction on 45th. The roads are torn up in a major way, but we got through it without turning an ankle. When we turned south onto Duval, and climbed that little hill there, we saw Jan ahead of us, walking and then stopping. We were concerned, and asked her what was up. She was wiped out a little by the conditions, I think. Jan tagged along with us for another half mile or so down Duval, but then she just couldn't go on from there. We told her we'd advise Gilbert and Henry up ahead that she was walking to them (it would be about another mile for her), and to wait on her. Everybody has one bad long run in a marathon training program, or at least most people do, and this was just her bad run. She's been crushing the long runs up till now, so I know she'll figure out what she might have done differently with her pre-run nutrition and hydration.

At any rate, Amy and I were in the homestretch of our little run. Patrick had gone on ahead after Jan slowed on Duval, so we didn't see him anymore. We cruised through the UT campus, and found Henry with the last water stop at the 13 mile mark, more or less. We told him about Jan, and pretty quickly we were off. Just a minute there. Up the nasty little hill on San Jacinto, a right turn on 11th south of the Capitol, and then we rocked on down Congress to 6th Street, and there we called it a day. As we crossed Congress to go to Starbucks, Henry and Jan saw us (she took advantage of the ride, given her condition today), and gave us some grief.

For the day, we clocked 14.25 miles, average pace 9:09/mile, which was great. With the various stops, the pace slowed to 9:40/mile, but that's still okay on a tough weather day.

The splits for the last miles were: 9:04, 8:47, 8:54, 9:05, 8:59 (.4 miles), and 8:28 for the last mile. It was nice to see that we picked up our pace throughout, and Amy and I had fun talking about everything. Amy and I stopped at Starbucks there at 6th and Congress, and got some cool drinks, and then we enjoyed a 1 mile cooldown walk to RunTex as we sipped our iced tea and water.

We waited for the marathoners to finish, and then gathered at Auditorium Shores for the stretching extravaganza. It was a nice day of running and comraderie. Amy drove me back up to the top of the course so I could retrieve my car, and the day was done. I never really got a chance to have a serious afternoon nap, so I crashed really early on Saturday after some wonderful Mexican food at Manuel's for dinner with the kids.

Another 30 mile plus week, as I keep building to the start of Freescale training in September.