la, la la, you guys. i ran 4.5 miles on tuesday evening, i ran 8 miles thursday morning. ain't no thing. ... wait, yes it is! it's helpful to have my other half's perspective on this. 8 miles is nothing to scoff at!
anyway, yesterday i wasn't scoffing, i was too busy choking and spluttering. i am practicing the art of drinking while in motion because i want to be able to sip my beverage without walking (leg cramp avoidance technique 1: don't ever stop running.) here's how it goes: every time i take my handheld with me, my first attempt begins with a slapstick-style electrolyte facespray, because the sloshing beverage has excited itself to high degrees of effervescence and i have the memory of a running goldfish. i feel this has been really effective, though, since never once have my eyebrows gotten thirsty while long-running. and then after that i remember to open it facing away from myself, and i've mostly got the order of breathes and swigs in order, so that's going well.
meanwhile in another part of the forest: tuesday's run was a Blair Witch event, since my beliefs about when the sun sets are currently stuck in August mode despite it almost being October (insert panicky noise here.) i got to the trail for my two speedwork (er, sort of) loops, and thought -- wait, the sun is going down, like: *now*. thus i booked it through the woods for 3 miles. and of course the woods are more dark than the open fields, which means you feel like you need to hurry faster, but you do NOT want to trip on a root 3.5 weeks before your bloody marathon, and you are trying to do intervals so you need to see your garmin, so your progress swings abruptly from semi-sprint up pineneedle hills to gingerly hopping about to squinting at your watch to bolting again. and when i'm on a trail i have acquired the habit of checking behind me every so often to check for bikers/runners faster than me -- so, i also looked like i was running *scared*. nice. i had to do some road running afterwards to get close to the correct mileage, and of course got confusingly lost in a neighbourhood i've never seen before, yet got back to the car half a mile short. by then it was of course pitch black and my sweat was freezing so i packed it in.
another observation: my 20 mile run (!! remember?) on sunday didn't trash my legs at all, and i worked out normally on monday, which felt both impressive and insane ... but it sure did slow me down. well, that's my interpretation anyway: tuesday, my perceived effort should have had me at 8:45 miles, and i was going like 10:30. i know we've talked about these trails before, but even so -- even the road part, i was speeding up for half-mile intervals, and seeing like 9:45 on my watch. that's not speeding up! but thursday morning, my first warm-up mile was 9:35, and everything else hovered around 9:10-9:15. i aimed for the last two miles to be 9:20, and they clocked in at 9:03 and 8:49, a little bit of effort but certainly less than tuesday. distinctly weird, how different two speeds can feel.
this weekend i am traveling so my schedule is a little wonky; won't run long again til monday, but there's some kind of running-hills-in-the-arboretum plan for tomorrow.
feeling good about this, people. keep fingers crossed.
I bought a camelbak thing so I could put things in it when I went on trail runs that required a train first, and it's surprisingly easy to drink from the valve thing while running. I highly recommend it. (I do have to stop and walk every time I want to eat some jelly babies, though. But I have to walk a little every now and then to check in with my ankles and persuade my knees to keep going, so that works out fine.)
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