September 17, 2011

22 mile training run report

Just a quick note to self: Chinese food the night before your longest training run of the year, was probably not the best idea. - Seriously, I thought the rice (high in carbs) and broccoli were a good choice, but who can have Chinese without the General Tsos chicken?! I was tired of the same old pasta, so I wanted to try something different. We tried Mexican two weeks ago before the 20, and it played out well, but Chinese, not so much.

Run started off like any other long run, just settling into a good even groove. Pacing out mile after mile around Pete's neighborhood, then up through Cammack and down to the Y, swing through the neighborhood for water, and back to Pete's for the first 11. 10:35 pace. No problem!

Ran the route the opposite direction for the back half, and somewhere during mile 15 I started having some pretty good stomach cramps. The gastric pain was relieved only by farting and belching, which I couldn't do as often as I would like. It felt like air in the stomach and I'm convinced (now) that it was the wrong fuel from the night before.

Pete hung with me and we ran/walked a couple more miles, but as we finished 17, he said he was feeling good, so I encouraged him to go on so he could finish strong enough to have the confidence he needed going into race day. As he left me I walk/jogged my slowest two miles at 13:11 and 13:25.

Couldn't have that, so I got into a better pattern of walk/jog for the last 3 miles, and though I had some leg/calf/hamstring muscle cramps/pain/tightening going on, I was still able to maintain a 50/50 mix of run/walk. Jogged the 22nd mile in to save the overall pace at 11:17. 11:20 is 5 hour pace, so if I can hold that pace on a tough day like this, than I have hope that I can still meet the goal.

Pete, on the other hand, finished strong, running his fastest miles of the day once he was done carrying me around town all morning. He was able to run a sub 10 pace home and save a 10:56 overall pace.

Comparing the 20 to the 22 is a little scary. We ran 3:26 on the 20, and today I was about 3:46 at the 20. That's a minute per mile different. So now the question is, which Chris will show up on race day?

P.S. I let Molly eat the leftover Chinese for lunch today!

No comments:

Post a Comment