Long Run Misunderestimation

Time: 146:24
Distance: 23.59 miles
Pace: 6:12
Map

I had dreams of getting up around 5:30 am, driving over to my storage unit to pick up a water cooler with Nuun and then meeting up with everyone for 20 miles over at the Dowd YMCA. However, those were just dreams and I rolled over and went back to sleep. Hard. I slept until around 9:00 am and even when I got up I had little interest in jumping out the door. I messed around on the intertubes, sent some emails, made some phone calls and then contemplated my run. I had the urge to run 20 miles, but didn't want to do it all on the roads. I figured that I could run to the Old Bell entrance at McAlpine, run a loop of the Footlocker course and then run home. It would definitely be around 20 miles and the middle 7 would be on the crushed gravel. That's where I misunderestimated the route.

In my mind it was at most 7 miles from my house to Old Bell, but it turns out that it was just over 8 miles to the parking lot. James Haycraft gave me some "words of encouragement" as I barreled past him. During this run I also wanted to do some 400m pickups followed by 1200m of easy running for the time I was on dirt. I started my other watch when I hit the wood post and ran easy to the .25 mark before picking up the pace. I hit splits of:

1:33 (easy), 1:21 (pickup), 4:40 (easy), 1:20, 4:34, 1:19, 4:33, 1:19, 4:38, 1:15, 4:40, 1:17, 4:38, 1:18, 3:06 (800m) for 41:37 and ~7 miles at McAlpine.

I was starting to feel a little fatigued by the time I left the park. The remaining portion home was mostly uphill and the temps were starting to get to me. I had stopped at Providence Day School on my way out and planned to do the same on the way back. The water fountain near the tennis courts allowed me to slurp in some necessary fluids to keep me rolling. Up until this point I didn't know how fast or how hard I had been running. As I've mentioned before my Garmin's strap is broken so I was carrying the watch face in an enclosed wrist pocket. I took my first glance at the watch while I was at PDS and saw that I was 17+ miles at an average of 6:17. This is where the realization hit that the run was going to be long. Very long.

I still felt strong and continued on my way home. The remaining 6 miles had long gradual stretches of uphill or downhill. I cruised along back to the house and called it a day. The legs took a bit of a beating, but they still felt strong on the final hill less than a half mile from my door. It should be noted that I was running in my Karhu Racers which allowed me to run a little faster than normal as they are lighter and more flexible. For whatever reason, I've started training in them a bit more this weeks on runs other than workouts.

Overall Splits:
7:46, 6:59, 6:49, 6:22, 6:27, 6:23, 6:13, 6:12,
5:59 (started pickups near here), 5:58, 5:56, 6:04, 5:45, 5:43, 5:51,
6:26 (hill on Sardis Rd), 6:11, 6:08, 5:47, 6:04, 5:57, 5:57, 6:00, 3:23 for .59 miles (5:46 pace)