Thunder Road Preview: the Bad Side

Distance: 8 mi.
Time: ??

I have developed a very nasty habit at the worst possible time: forgetting to charge my Garmin. I will make sure this doesn't happen on Friday!

After setting my valets up for a show downtown, I decided I wanted to run the last 8 miles of the course, away from town on Caldwell Street and then back. Unlike yesterday, I felt very sluggish, but I think that has more to do with working and staying out late the night before than it does with anything else. At any rate, any soreness is all in the muscles and not in the joints, so that's a good thing. Mostly I am trying not to worry about anything weird that happens to me; I understand the mind has a way of playing tricks on the runner this close to a big race.

This part of the course is supposed to be nothing short of awful, and I can see why. However, I would like to note that, while this course is indeed tough, most of the big uphills are preceded by big downs. Queens East, Morehead, Mint Street, Davidson, Hawthorne - they are all preceded by comfortable downhills. That's the easy side of the term "rolling" that's used to describe this course. This Davidson Street section, however, is just going to suck....plain and simple. It's long, the scenery is ugly, and it's wide open, very inviting to the elements. It will get better after that as I expect the crowd support to be excellent in the NoDa district, but this stretch of pavement will test my ability to run well without help.

From here I wound through NoDa and down what should be a fast section of the course on the Plaza. This next section will again be tough, as we turn down Central, towards uptown, only to wind back through some neighborhoods for a couple miles. We ascend the infamous Hawthorne Avenue hill right after the 24-mile mark, and at that point we're basically home-free. I'm getting antsy. This is going to be a beast, but I can't wait to see how I handle it.

In these course previews I left out the section that goes through South End and downtown, but I have run through there multiple times on other runs. I've bitched recently to friends about not trusting my training, but upon further review it looks like I actually knew what I was doing these last 15 weeks. 

Plaza-Midwood Day

Distance: 7.47 mi
Time: 00:57:00 - 7:37 ppm
Running Buddy

I was supposed to do 8-10 miles with some uphill time today, so I left home and wandered over to Plaza Midwood. I ended up running the part of the Thunder Road course that goes through here, including the "taker of souls" hill on Hawthorne Lane. It's a tough hill regardless but it's infamous to the course because it occurs near  the end - mile 24, if I'm not mistaken. I got to run by all the restaurants that I should probably check out at some point. The pace was decent considering the weather.

Fantastic Long Run

Distance: 9.12 mi
Time: 01:09:50/7:39 pace

I love running in the rain...I mean, I really love running in the rain. There's just something about it. It's...spiritual, almost. I feel like rain is one of Mother Nature's many of showing that the runner is part of it, that you belong amongst the elements and fit there perfectly as another moving, admiring part, cutting shapes in between the fresh rain drops. And no, I don't smoke weed.

This morning, however, was a little different. I took one look outside my window and said, "Oh, hale naw!!" It looked as if a category-four hurricane was storming through the apartment complex, and I went back to bed.

Shortly after noon, I saw my chance: it was raining pretty steadily, the way I love it, and I took off down the roads. I was going to do this long run on feel, meaning it would not be a long run at all if I felt the least bit worn out. I don't think I had made it a quarter-mile down the road when the skies opened up once again and I found myself in a torrential downpour. Those words are not exaggerations. It was raining so hard that I could barely see in front of me, and it was probably a good thing I was on a familiar road (Randolph).

There were a few cars out, and anyone who saw me had to have thought (known?) that I was completely insane. A few of them even pulled off and stopped; it was that bad. I wiped the water off my Garmin to see that I had been running about 7:25 pace, and it felt more like 6-flat. It's tough getting doused with rainwater, fighting through wind, and trying to make sure your clothes stay on, all whilst maintaining a decent pace. There was nothing spiritual about this; this was nature's way of saying that sometimes it's best to just stay indoors. I stopped for a few minutes at a red light under a small gazebo right by Presbyterian Hospital, made certain that I was where I thought I was, then continued. And then...it stopped. I got to Kings Drive, then turned on Trade Street and headed downtown. The sun was now shining brightly, and it would stay that way for the rest of my run. Obviously, I was soaked, but the Brooks seemed to do a good job of allowing the water to seep out. I was thankful for that.

I had decided I was going to run downtown, check the mileage, and then plan the rest of the run accordingly. I went past the Cable Box (Time Warner Cable Arena), past the Bank of America tower, where I waved to a client of mine who happened to be standing at the window, and made my way down to Poplar. I enjoyed this, downtown's most scenic street, arguably, and then made my way out on 7th. I ran past Discovery Place and Capital Grille and headed away on Trade Street again before cutting back to 7th.

I checked fitness and realized I could easily do 9 miles today, then checked the Garmin and realized I could easily extend this route to the Plaza-Midwood area. And so I did. Given the recent rainstorm, there weren't many people out and about, but I ran around there for a bit before heading home.

This was one of those runs that would not have been possible before, without my Garmin - not if I wanted to know the details of the run and not have to spend thirty minutes mapping out a route on the PC. I loved it. The conditions were awful - after the sun came out it was ghastly humid, of course - but the best runs are where one can just trot out the door and figure out the way on the fly.

My last mile equaled my second one as the fastest of the run, at 7:25. I felt great at the end.

Stats and Map (this is definitely a good time to click that link, if you don't normally)