T’was the day I was dreading this week. The weather forecast was heat and more heat later. To compound that issue, I haven’t ventured past 12 miles running or walk/running in the past nine months. It was going to be a really slow slog or bust.
The sun was already out in my part of town when I left home. When I reached the staging area which is closer to the beach, I was pleasantly surprised that it was overcast due to the marine layer. We don’t get too many of those in the middle of summer. Even though it was humid, at least the sun wasn’t out.
I kept my warm-up short to about five minutes and soon enough we were off on our urban adventure. My pacing partner Monica was missing again this week. That fall two weeks ago must have aggravated something. The other girl – Sophie (the fartlek girl I mentioned a few posts ago), took off fast as she usually does. I didn’t expect to be catching up to her today because I just wanted to run conservatively. The potential heat and the distance can make you do that.
It wasn’t good that my right ankle was hurting early and often. In fact it was hurting the whole way. I was just hoping and praying that the tendon doesn’t tear again. I was faced with a dilemma several times today. Some people were running a few yards ahead of me and others behind me. I had to decide whether to try to catch up with the people ahead, or slow down and run with the people behind. But I found myself running alone most of the time due to the irregular paces of the people I tried to run with. I’m more of a rhythm runner: when I find a good pace and rhythm I tend to stay with it without much variance.
In the end we got lucky because the sun stayed hidden for the most part. I finished the 14 miler in 2 hours, 14 minutes, and 26 seconds, which was 9:36 pace per mile. The surprising thing about that is: when I had my lightheaded 4 mile run last Tuesday, the pace was 9:45 per mile, and the one hour deliberately slow run last Thursday was 9:53 pace. So I ran today’s 14 miler faster than the two shorter runs this week. Not bad at all and I’m happy to have finished. I’m not sure if I’ll be doing the 16 miler in two weeks. I’m only signed up for the half-marathon so today’s run was already one mile beyond that. I’m curious to find out about the change in our training course from previous years though. We will be entering the confines of California State University - Long Beach for a few miles this year. I’ll defer my decision till that time.
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