Man, as soon as I popped off about the gorgeous running weather on Thursday morning, Mother Nature got her revenge today. It was a full out 81 degrees at 6:00am, and it warmed to around 85 by the time we were done. Add that to the humidity, and it was probably the worst day of running conditions for a long run all year long.
Those of us starting AT&T marathon training today (that's the new title sponsor for the former Freescale Marathon) listened to Gilbert's introduction to the training, and then he let the "veterans" get started while the new folks got a chance to ask questions. We had Sue, Colleen, Rachel, Emily, Amy, Wayne, Javier, Richard and me in our little group. I had intended to do Bonnell today, but the late start and the poor conditions caused me to rethink things. We decided on a pure Scenic loop instead.
The initial miles were pretty comfortable, and I got a chance to chat with Richard a good bit. We hit the first water/Powerade stop at about the 4 mile mark, and I took that chance to do a GU. It was obvious that the heat was taking a toll, but we still felt okay as a group. As we moved on into the Scenic hills, I just hung out and let other folks set the pace. It's a little easier to let the group pull you along. Richard and Emily dropped back somewhere in there, and I guess they took a different path home. The rest of us grabbed a drink of water at the dry cleaners, and we were off again. I probably should have taken another GU there, but it was only a couple miles since the first stop, and that seemed too soon.
Up 35th, and then onto Exposition. We saw a group of Gazelles there on Exposition, coming our way, many of whom were new folks. Jennifer was back with that group of Gazelles today, after her long return from injury, and she was obviously a happy girl to be running again. Going down Exposition, I started dragging a little, but hung close enough to everyone else to finish at the last water/Powerade stop with them. After that refreshment stop it was time to get finished.
We picked it up a little more on that last stretch, but by now, I was falling back a little more, at least inside my own head. Exposition was well-paced, but now I didn't have much snap left. Heat is not my friend. That skipped GU may have given me a much-needed boost, but who knows for sure? At any rate, we zipped through the Mopac bridge, and I was left chasing Rachel, Javier and Wayne for our modest "fast finish." I eventually caught up with and passed Javier, but Rachel and Wayne were loooonnnggg gone. Turning after the footbridge with a mile to go, I sort of unplugged for a bit, and had to shift to a shuffle for a hundred yards or so, until I got a second wind. That hasn't happened to me in quite a while.
Still, once I finished, it had turned out to be a decent effort, all things considered.
The stats: 10:18, 9:30, 9:26, 0.93 miles at 9:05/mile pace, 1:50 Powerade/water/GU stop, then 9:03, 9:02, and 0.13 miles at 8:30/mile (once the hills leveled out a bit), 2:24 water stop at the dry cleaners, then 9:01, and 1.08 miles at 8:47/mile (a red light stop actually added some to our pace there), last water stop at 1:51, then 8:25, 8:21, my "unplugged" mile at 9:18, and then 0.20 miles at 8:27/mile pace. Overall, 11.4 miles at 9:34/mile, including all water stop time. Actual running pace was 9:02/mile, which was decent. HR was a little higher than usual for this run, which is totally attributable to the heat and humidity.
I did some striders after I retrieved my stretching gear, and that helped put some spring back in my legs. The full stretching did some good as well.
Some brief chatting with folks after we were done (Brad, Jan, Brian, Alex), and it was time to take a roundabout way back home since most of the streets were filled with some sort of parade and the buses waiting to ferry people to the ACL Festival. What a mess!
For the week, I was back up to a reasonably good 35 miles.
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