Long Running [entered 1/6/08]

Saturday, it was long run time again. On an average weather day (humid and in the high 50s to low 60s), I met up with the gang at 5:30am for a tour d'Austin. The AT&T folks were due for 20, but my peeps were "only" going to go for 16.5 or so. After the initial shuffling around, I ended up running with Leslie and Frank. They must have been taking it easy due to injury discomfort, but I still appreciate the fact that I had folks that wanted to run my pace. :-)

We started out by heading south on the initial 5 miles or so of the AT&T course. That first hill is still a tester, especially since it appears right away, before we got a chance to warm up much at all. I was worried a bit as we worked our way up the steady incline, all the way to the end of Lightsey, since I was huffing and puffing more than I'd prefer that early in a long run. However, once we turned back north on S. First, I settled down, and from that point on, I was running fairly comfortably.

I had thought we'd find lots of AT&T folks running around our pace, but I suppose most of our pace pals were running the 30K on Sunday, and thus weren't there for this long run. Oh, well. We found plenty to discuss as we cruised around town. Gilbert had the rolling water stop set up around Oltorf, and he was already in an expansive mood. Again, it's funny how we are all so wide-awake so early in the morning, even if we're not necessarily "morning people."

We didn't encounter too many runners this morning, presumably due to tomorrow's race. Still, it was a little weird to have the streets and sidewalks basically to ourselves.

We took a second quick water stop at Auditorium Shores, where I took a GU as well. Nice trip on the trail to Mopac, then Lake Austin Blvd. to the next water/Accelerade stop at Enfield. We were already 9 miles into our morning, and it seemed like most of the hard terrain was still yet to come. Man, I'm glad I'm not doing AT&T this year!!

The hills of Enfield and Exposition came next, and we got through those in pretty fine shape. It was sure great to get over the bridge at Mopac, because that was the last bad hill of the day, really. We met up with Lisa and Laura at the water/Accelerade stop on Shoal Creek, and had a brief chat as we took our second GU and tanked up on fluids. From there, we only had maybe 5 miles to go, so weirdly, we were almost done.

Picking our way across 38th Street was different, since we don't usually use 38th to get across town, but it worked out okay. Kenny was there on Duval with the next water/Accelerade stop, and after topping off, it was time to finish this thing.

I started running up front after that, through the massive construction project at the UT football stadium, through the nearly empty UT campus, up those nasty little hills on San Jacinto going past the Capitol, and then finally, we were on the downhill tip on 11th and then Congress. I tried to get us run over at several of the stoplights and crosswalks on Congress, but we managed to escape without serious damage. I just wanted to get done, I guess. :-)

Leslie were running along at the end, and she kept asking what the GPS said the mileage was. When we realized that we were going to be really close to an even 17 miles, we decided to continue on the trail for just a little bit after the usual stopping place, just to let the watch roll over to an even 17. Silly? Yes. But, by the time we ran past SRVaughan's statue, we had achieved our minor goal. 6 striders later, I was ready for the full stretching routine.

We did most of the optional "bonus" stretches on Saturday, and we had an overflow crowd at the Annex that spilled out onto the loading ramp and parking lot outside. It was a nice day for stretching, even if it was a little warm to be considered ideal for running.

For the day, 16.94 miles (after accounting for the minor distances that accumulate at water stops, you lose some absolute mileage). 2:42:03 with all water stop time included, 9:34/mile total pace. Actual running pace after subtracting 10:31 in water stop time was a nifty 8:57/mile, plenty good for me.

I scored a surprising 43.5 miles this week, the most in quite a while. Got in 5 days of running. Failed to return to the gym, but I should get that kick started next week after circuit training on Monday reveals the state of my weak core. All in all, things are going great. I might back off a tiny bit on mileage this week to allow some recovery and rebuilding...we'll see how that goes.