After the Dowd half, I left for Run For Your Life because I needed some more gel. Backing up a bit, I ate two bowls of oatmeal early before I watched the race because that's what I plan to do on race day and I want to get used to the routine. I had an 18-mile long run on the docket and decided I wanted to run from my house to McAlpine, run the course, and come back. Each time I would stop at Providence Day to drink some water. From my mappings this would actually be 17.7 miles - close enough. I also wanted this to be a reasonably fast long run, so I wished myself luck as I trotted up Randolph Road.
Randolph gave me some steep uphill climbs on the way to Sardis Road; obviously, these would be downhills on the way back. I had started off slowly but comfortably, running 7:30-ish pace, which I figured would leave me plenty of room to drop things in the fast range towards the end of the run. When I got to Providence Day I realized I turned in the wrong road, so I had to double-back to go the right way. I meandered through their campus to the tennis courts, where I stopped at a water fountain for about a minute. I headed out towards the Lansdowne neighborhoods and noticed there was a two-tiered chain link fence standing in my way. The things you don't see on a satellite map.... Oddly enough, I never broke stride as I hopped right onto and over the fence. I hadn't planned on running a steeplechase today and noted that I wouldn't be able to scale the fence from the other side, so my route was messed up less than six miles in. Great.
When I got to McAlpine I took the second gel packet (I had taken one before I left and stuffed two into my shorts - my cold weather shorts have pockets for such things). I noticed that I had accidentally bought a gel flavor that has caffeine and made a point to take that one first because the bathroom would be more convenient at the park. Luckily, it never bothered my stomach.
Running on the greenway gave me an accurate measure of my pace; I was still running in the 7:30s and actually slipped to a 7:45 at one point. When I got to the course I managed to speed things up a bit and settled into a groove at 7:20 pace. No more messing around - I was about 12 miles in when I got back to the Sardis lot and was ready to do work. I mistakenly thought that my route adjustment at Providence Day was going to shorten my distance, not lengthen it, so I added a mile in the Old Bell hills and then took the last gel packet. I couldn't get an accurate reading but I gradually picked up the pace again while running uphill on Sardis Road.
When I got back to PD I was once again turned around by dumpsters, fences, gates, and other objects that were in my way. Arrrrrggghh. This 17.7-mile run was quickly turning into something longer. I made it back to the water fountain and headed home. At this point I really opened up my stride and let my frame go to work, pumping my arms and spacing out my steps. I thought about all those people who had said I was too big (6'2"/190) to be a distance runner. I caught a break with the stoplights and began to rock and roll. I knew where the two-mile spot was and ended up running under 13 minutes for the final two miles.
I finished very hard today but I was spent when I got home. I re-mapped my route and found that I had actually run 19.06 miles in 2:20:05, or 7:21 per mile. I'll take that any day of the week after running 7:30 or slower for the first 8 miles or so.
The challenge at this point is to keep the mileage up without killing myself in the coming week. I need to do 20 for my next long run but it's going to have to be a much more leisurely effort.
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