T59 - A Personal Record Put in Perspective - Run

Gainesville

Run - 2.5 Hours

2 Lipodrene
Today was the longest I've ever run. Ever. In my life. And not that I needed to go all codependant on this workout to get in the 15-or-so miles I'd be doing, but I had mentioned that I was doing this run the other day to Justin, and he is training for the Space Coast Marathon, and wanted to come along. Fine. He well knows that he runs faster than me, so he'd have to pace himself accordingly.

I decided that much as I like training with the heat, a run this long needed to be done in the evening. So I got a good parking spot for the Saturn Aid Station right by the run-in on the first floor, and hit the road about 5. Justin waited a while so that he'd catch me at the end (he runs a slightly longer loop as well). I used the iPod as I did a lap of the campus loop. Started out striding well, but the heat started getting to me by the hill on 2nd and I found myself chopping steps there. Justin caught up to me right around the stadium, and flew ahead to finish the loop in the Jefferson parking garage well ahead of me. My iPod, which had been skipping a lot during the loop, finally froze about ten minutes from the end of this loop. Annoying, but you can't use those thigns on the Ironman course, so good to do a run this long without it.

Justin had run a little faster than me, obviously. So when I got back to the garage he was definitely still in recovery mode. I started talking to him and he said "You shouldn't be talking right now. You obviously didn't run hard enough." Yeah, probably. But I had another 8-9 miles to go, so I prefer to think I was pacing myself. I had a gel and suggested we get going. he did not like this suggestion, but I guess this was my way of pushing him. He kept the pace a little faster than I wanted as we began the first of three trips down to the Stadium and back. I lagged a little behind for some of it, but it was good having someone to talk to.

I really enjoy doing the half-hour loops after the big campus loop, because I'm never more than 15 minutes from my next turnaround, and every half hour you get an aid station at the car with Powerade and gels, and a little chance to rest. I don't even look at it as pussing out either, becasue on the course you actually get one of those every mile, and they have more stuff. It also makes the run mentally a lot easier. Oh, and it's flat too. But so is the IM course.

By lap 2 to the stadium, my legs started to hurt. I mean, I guess at the 12-mile mark, that's to be expected. But I realized this is what pretty much the whole run is going to feel like in November. Best get used to the pain. Lap 2 was, again, a little faster than I would have run otherwise, and I kept stride well. I think we got called "fags" by some guys driving by in a car at one point. I just looked at them and said "Really?" Ok guys. I can't even take anyone like that seriosuly at this point, my guess is they probably would have fallen out halfway into the first loop.

Lap 3, Justin decided to run ahead at his own pace, and looped around and caught me at the stadium as I turned around. I still kept the pace we'd been running when I ran alone, and at the end Justin had been clocking it and said I'd kept 10-minute miles the whole time. Which, slow as that sounds, is about my goal for runs like this. Yeah, I'm fat. Leave me alone. And on the way back, a carload of girls stopped on 13th (right where that girl stopped me and asked for my number last year) were whistling and hollering at us as we ran by. I think they were cute. So I guess running with your shirt off invites different reactions from different people.

All in all, the longest run of my life went pretty well. Yeah, the iPod fucked up. Yeah, it hurt. And yeah, I wasn't setting any land speed marks. But I never felt like I wanted to die, I never thought about quitting, and if I'd been forced to I could have run more. And I think that is about what I should expect at this point. I kept to the gel-every-45 rule, even when I took one with 15 minutes to go. And I downed 64 oz. of Powerade as well as about half a bottle of water. Couldn't get enough fluid for a humid day like this, but the nutrition and hyration worked well today. We got back to the apartment and had some giant Muscle Milk shakes. Protein after a run that long, probably a good idea.

This was a solid way to end the first half of training for the Ironman. Yep, this workout marks he halfway point of the training cycle, and I don't think I could ask it to have gone better. But like I told Justin, I'm glad I have 3 months until race day. Because there's no way I coulda done 11 more miles. After a 112-mile ride. Really puts stuff in perspective, ya know?