I know, technically it's not August 25th. But I'll be out of town on that day. Fortunately for me, I've got an in with the race coordinator and she let me slide.
After a night that went a bit too late, I managed to crawl out of bed at 7:30am in hopes of hitting The Trail by 8am. The morning was grey and drizzling a bit, but the temp was hovering around 70' with very high humidity. Not a terrible morning to run a nice 8 miles.
First Mile: 9:22
A nice warm up mile. My legs were very stiff and it took every inch of that mile to get them feeling like they might actually want to carry me the remaining 7.25 miles.
Second Mile: 8:54
Ok, feeling better. The scenery on the trail is really wonderful - lots of trees, wildlife. For a good majority of it, you run right next to the Perkiomen Creek which is loaded with fish, turtles, frogs & a beaver or two. In the second mile I had a huge groundhog run across the trail hissing at me, several chipmunks scatter out of my way and even a few chickens (presumably belonging to one of the houses that border the creek). Had I run north on the trail instead of south, goats & the occasional cow would likely have been in the mix as well. I'm not kidding.
Third Mile: 8:48
Ooops. A little fast. When I run the Trail alone, one of the things I invariably do is pace myself against other runners. Today it seemed that most of the traffic was running the other way. (Maybe Folk-festers going back to The Fest, which was closing up shop about 2 miles north of my starting point on the Trail.) One runner came up behind me, and I swear, he must have just jumped out of the creek. He was absolutely soaking wet, including his shoes, which sloshed and squeaked with every single step. He was rockin' a good pace, or so I thought, so I let him get about 100 yards ahead of me and then just tried to keep up. About 1/2 mile in, I glanced at Garmin and saw I was running nearly an 8 min pace. Whoa! I needed to slow down and save some of it for next 5 or so miles.
Fourth Mile: 9:07
A much nicer pace. At the start of this mile, I hit the one hill on my course, a short but steep rise to cross the creek on an old railroad bridge. I got a spectacular view of the creek from this vantage point, and managed to see a pair of egrets, one of which was absolutely enormous. Also a school of fish (perhaps trout?) hiding in the shallows.
Fifth Mile: 9:17
I turned around at just past the 4 mile mark, also taking the opportunity to take a Cliff Blok along with my water. I will later realize that this is a mistake. My legs are already feeling tired, and mentally, I'm not doing too much better. I don't do well with any elecrolyte supplements I've tried (Shots, Bloks, Gu, any of the "ades") - they just make my stomach sick. But I decided to bring the Bloks with me on this run and if I felt like I needed a lift, to give it a shot. Within 1/2 mile, I could feel the Blok sitting in my stomach like a rock. (I promised myself that one of my goals was now to find a local place that sells Nuun and try that out.)
Sixth Mile: 9:18
I am seriously dragging by now. I decide to take a page out of MCM Mama's book and start singing "99 Bottles of Beer" in my head. She claims this keeps her going, because one round takes about 1 mile to sing. I think I got to bottle 93 and gave up. I decide to concentrate on lenghtening my stride to loosen my hips and really stand straight to increase my lung capacity with each breath.
Seventh Mile: 9:03
I guess my strategy worked because I did feel much better on this mile and was looking forward to a strong finish to this race.
Eight Mile: 9:15
Not as strong as I would have liked, mostly due to a nearly 20 second stop at a traffic light. The trail crosses a few streets and I think a local church must have just let out because there happened to be a line of cars waiting at this particular light.
Last 0.25 Mile: 1:59
The last half mile of the race I ran at practically an all-out sprint for me. Glancing at Garmin several times, I was running at about a 7:30 mile pace. By the end of the race, I was venturing into puke-threshhold territory. No, I didn't puke, but I did feel good knowing that I pretty much left everything on the Trail :).
Total: 8.25 miles in 1:15:05. Happy Birthday, MCM Mama!! Enjoy your day!!
No comments:
Post a Comment