An Old-Dog-Old-Trick Run

Week 4 Key Run 3

Planned Workout: 20 miles @ MP + 15 secs. (7:47 min/mile)
Actual Run: 18.1 miles in 2:24:39 min. @ 7:00 a.m.
Weather: Partly Cloudy, 63°F, 81% Humidity, Wind: CALM; feels like 63°F.
Average Mile Page: 8:00 min./mi.
Course: A portion of the "official" Rochester Marathon Course, reconfigured using USATF Map It!.

Pre-Run Permutations: Waking up this morning, following a terrible night's sleep (one during which I woke up for almost an hour-and-a-half only to watch a terrible Billy Blanks movie), I pulled myself from bed, drank a quick cup o' joe and headed out for a run. I'm "experimenting" with a few different things with this morning's run, the least of which is NOT establishing an almost 22 mile route in advance... I'm still not sure how well this will go, but at least if I start out with that longer distance in mind, to finish it all would be exemplary.

Some other things I'm trying differently are 1) bringing three flasks of liquid, 2 filled with high quality H2O and a third with PowerAde, and 2) I've put some fancy light blue Yankz "laces" on my trainers just to give them a try and see how I like them prior to committing them to my new (as yet unused) running shoes. I will also be returning to a run-walk-run strategy for this longer run, after first completing a 10k... and aw-a-YAWN-a-ay I go!

Post-Run Reflections: Hopefully, judging from my blog post title, you can tell that some things went very well and some things... not so much. The great thing is that I felt good about the run in general and any mis-steps are easily rectifiable... with a little luck! Here's the good (+) and the not-so-cool (-):

(-): failed to make it the entire 22 mile route as scheduled, foolishly made a last minute decision to eliminate one flask of H2O from my hydration belt, made the extremely dumb move of being seduced by the feeling and not run-walk-running, but instead running non-stop, my overall pace was about 13 seconds too slow for what I had intended--all in all I did the one thing I should never do... I stepped away from what I knew to work in favor of doing what I also knew might feel good in the short term.

(+): used the liquids and bloks I did bring in a manner that extended both their value and my own ability to run well, ran very confidently working hard to maintain both my form and focus, tested some equipment (Yankz) and found them to be very nice, enjoyed a beautiful start to the day... until it seemed to get hot, that is, smartly ran into the East (sun) while it had not yet risen and way (Wets when it had, thus avoided running directly into blinding lights, and finally, wished those I came across on the canal a "good morning!"

Overall, I was pretty pleased with how things went and am hoping to finish the balance of the missing mileage today in a moderately distanced LSD run tomorrow... now to take a little break and enjoy this evening's Olympic Marathon!

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!

Photo Explanation: The pic to the upper right of this post has nothing to do with today's run, except that I am in it and running... actually pacing my stepson (who finished ahead of me) to victory in a run sponsored by his sixth grade in May 2007... it's sort of a "blast from the past" of which I am proud, as I have yet to have replaced my recently deceased digital camera.