Long Running - Scenic Version

The first Official Long Run for the Chicago marathon training in GazellesWorld was this morning. It was hot and humid (80 degrees and thick), so we were all a little wary of the run ahead as we gathered at RunTex. Gilbert had devised a grouping based on tempo run times, I suppose, and he sent us out in those rather large groups to do the Scenic route (roughly 11 miles of hilly terrain). Our "B" group went out, and by the second mile, about 8 folks had broken away ahead of me, and I fell in with a secondary group. We stopped briefly at Mopac for a sip of water, and headed on out from there. At that juncture, I was in No Man's Land between groups, but soon caught up with Amy. We ran together until Gilbert's Accelerade/water stop near Red Bud Trail. I was trying to keep the pace down, so I was happy to let that front group get out ahead of me. So far, so good.

Splits miles 1-3.5: 9:57, 9:09, 0.33 miles at 9:06/mile (34 second water stop), then 9:11 and 0.23 miles at 9:21/mile. 9:23/mile running pace. Gilbert's water stop 1:34.

Amy told me to go on ahead, so I was running totally alone for most of the next mile, but I slowly caught up to Lisa as we reached the start of the hilly stuff on Scenic Dr. I settled in at her pace, and we proceeded to run together pretty much the rest of the day. We had some nice conversation when we weren't huffing and puffing up the hills. We noticed that a few folks had been burned out from the early quicker pace in the subgroup ahead, and they were coming back to us a little bit. We kept our effort about the same, and it was good to see that our approach was working. We got water at the dry cleaners on 35th Street, and I took a GU, and we were off again. The hill on 35th was some steady work, and then we hit the rolling fun that is Exposition. We gathered up those folks who had faded back a little, and I was actually feeling pretty good as we reached the second official Gazelles water/Accelerade stop at O. Henry. It was really hot, but at this point, we were going to finish pretty well.

Splits miles 4-8: 9:04, 8:59, 0.48 miles at 8:53/mile, (2:31 water/GU stop), 9:17, 8:56, (water/Accelerade stop 2:32). Running pace down to 9:12/mile. That's what I was targeting, so good for me.

We were not under orders to kick in a "Fast Finish," so we paired up again, Lisa and me, and rolled on down to Mopac again, and onto the trail. Lisa told me to go on with one mile to go, so I pushed just a tiny bit from there, but nothing super fast. Right when I finished, I caught Steve again, just like at the tempo race. He had gone out with a different group. My legs felt sort of heavy and tired over those last couple of miles, but they didn't hurt. I'll chalk that up to my fairly aggressive return to Gazelles Compliance this week, plus the heat and humidity.

Splits miles 9-11.3: 9:01, 9:01, 8:44, 0.2 miles at 7:45. Running pace for 11.3 miles was 9:06/mile, just fine and dandy. With water stop time, it drifted to 9:44/mile overall.

After some water and a brief dunking under the outdoor shower at the Zero Mile marker, I joined the others for some striders (I did 6), and as usual, I felt much better on strider numbers 4 through 6 than I did numbers 1 through 3. Gilbert led us in some hopping and some form drills, and then Alex led the stretching today, per Gilbert's instruction. It was a very large group of folks there this morning, the biggest number of Gazelles for stretching in a long time. That was fun to see.

After that, a bunch of us went to Austin Java for some breakfast and further conversation, and we all had a nice time. It was a good start to the marathon training program, even if it was tough weather conditions.

I got to 28 miles this week, with 3 gym visits and a circuit workout. Full compliance with my weekly training plan. Hooray. Next week, I am aiming for a similar compliance situation, and I will add in the second recovery run on Tuesday instead of cycling at Gold's. Mileage should bump up to 32-35 miles next week.