Start time: 7/5/03, 6:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Activity: Running
Distance: 14 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 3:1 (and then 3:2, and then 2:2. Yeesh!)
Average pace: hahahahahahahahaha

Big thanks this week go out to S.L. Viehl, who is my latest sponsor. Thank you so much!

Welcome to Washington DC, home of the world of humidity and heat. That’s perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but it doesn’t feel like much of one. This weekend has been unbearably hot; which made me look forward to being able to start at 6am this Saturday for our 14-mile run.

Except, of course, even at 6am it was still really hot. I have to remind myself that the actual day of the marathon (at the end of October) will be much cooler and more pleasant to run in, because otherwise the thought of doing it would be discouraging at best. We had a small group this week, what with yesterday being Independence Day and all, so just five of us headed out to have a practice run that would be just over half a marathon.

The first six miles went pretty well, but it was right around then that we lost all of our shade and things started heating up in more ways than one. Some of us were dragging more than others, and around the 8.5 mile point, we’d already shifted our running pace down a bit in an effort to keep from going splat. We lost Madelyn about three quarters of a mile later, though, who decided that she was going to catch a group behind us and come in at a slower pace. I’m wondering if I should have done the same, because by the time we hit our second turn around (10 miles in), I was starting to really drag. Nothing was hurting, thank goodness; I was just feeling extraordinarily tired. I kept pushing for two more miles, and then we changed our running ratio again, which kept me going for another mile. With one mile to go, I told my group to just go on and I was going to walk it in.

I’ve heard more stories about “hitting the wall” than I can count, but I don’t think I’d ever actually done so until today. I’ve had a handful of bad running experiences where I felt run-down and needed to slow down a bit, but this was different; this was “I’m going to walk because I can’t run”. So that’s what I did. I stuck my face in a water fountain about half a mile into that last stretch, and it felt absolutely heavenly. Towards the very end of that final mile, I even ran a small stretch just to try and boost my spirits up, because they were pretty low. But all in all, it was a pretty downbeat experience.

In two weeks I’m going to be missing the 16-miler due to being out of town, but hadn’t planned on making it up. Now I’m trying to come up with alternate plans to do so because after such a dreadful 14-miler, the last thing I want to do is have a bad 18-miler as well. Ugh.

Oh well. The last time I had a running session this bad, the next long run went perfectly, so here’s hoping history repeats itself! (And cooler weather, while we’re at it. That would be nice.)

Start time: 6/28/03, 6:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Activity: Running
Distance: 6 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 3:1
Average pace: 14:00min/mile

Not too terribly much to report this week! The rain momentarily let up this week, and after some hot days earlier in the week the temperature dropped just in time for this Saturday’s run. It’s just a six mile run this week, to let people recover from last week’s 12-miler and not injure themselves.

Of course, sometimes fate has other ideas. We were about three-quarters of the way through when John tripped on a bridge (the boards bounce up a little bit when we run over them, and his toe caught the board on an upwards bounce) and went flying. The poor guy landed right on one of his knees, and he ended up having to walk the last mile and a half back in. We’d all been thinking about what a great run this week was, and how well everyone was doing, so that will teach us to all get a little too secure!

Still, otherwise, a nice jaunt out and back, and perfectly on pace. (And as an added bonus, a pace group below us that’s been running too fast and passing us these last two weeks got lectured by the coach about going the correct pace. Not that it will stop them, I’m sure, but I’m glad they were told. It can be discouraging when a group that’s supposed to be slower keeps passing you!)

Start time: 6/21/03, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Activity: running
Distance: 12 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 3:1
Average pace: 14:00min/mile

Woohoo! What a great week this was. I got some donations from the following fabulous people: lioncub (who even as I type this is participating in the Tour de Friends bike ride from North Carolina to Washington DC to raise money for people with AIDS!), West and Jim Flanagan, and Monica and Jim McGrath. All heroes!

Then, I actually got off my butt and ran both of my maintenance runs during the week (instead of just one of them like I’ve been doing as of late). On Tuesday this meant running through the rain, while on Thursday it was outrunning a storm front that was rolling in (hey, at least there were nice cool breezes!), but the miles were under my belt and I was ready for Saturday.

Saturday morning started without a cloud in the sky, but still nice and cool; a couple pace group members were actually shivering! It’s great running weather, though, and after last week’s really hot temperatures this was a real relief. The majority of our run actually went without incident, unless you count me stepping off the trail and twisting my ankle around Mile 4 to be an incident. I shouted “Ouch!” or perhaps a less-pleasant word, but everything seemed to be fine so we pushed on.

Ultimately, though, it was a world of difference from last week. Everyone felt strong, we kept hitting the times we should have, and while we sort of split into two groups for the last mile or so (sometimes it just happens, there was about 100 feet distance between the groups so it wasn’t that far) we all finished really strong. In short, a near-perfect run.

Why couldn’t they all be this easy?

Start time: 6/14/03, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Activity: Running
Distance: 10 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 3:1, mostly
Average pace: probably closer to 14:20min/mile

So, last week I ended my journal entry with the comment, “Here’s hoping for a slightly dryer next Saturday!” Well, apparently I don’t know what I have until it’s gone, because this came back around and smacked me pretty good this Saturday.

The leading up to Saturday wasn’t bad; I only ended up doing one of my two maintenance runs (bad Greg!) but I also pushed it back up to my old distance of 3 miles instead of just 2.5 miles, so that was a good thing overall. Most of the week was full of thunderstorms, though, and I was more than a little hesitant about just what kind of weather we would have on Saturday morning. The answer? A bright, sunny, extremely humid day.

Now by this time the last two years, we’d had a lot of experience running in the heat. That wasn’t the case this time, though, since we’ve been either drizzles or torrential downpours each Saturday. The end result was… a little tougher for some of us than others. We only had eight people in our group today, but that quickly dropped down to seven thanks to a group member’s knee problems. We were doing good for the first five miles, though, until several group members wanted to slow down the pace. It was really warm and a combination of the temperature and the humidity was dragging everyone down a bit. We ended up splitting in two, with Madelyn taking two other team members on a slightly slower pace while four of us charged on ahead. We were pushing ahead pretty well until two of the four people in the group decided to use a porta-potty.

Now when I’m having a good running day, stopping for three or four minutes is doable. When I’m having a bad running day, though, it’s near-disastrous. I just couldn’t pick any momentum back up when they were done; since my furthest distance at this pace was only eight miles as well, that wasn’t helping matters. Since Madelyn’s other group had caught us during the potty break, I decided to step back and join them. The last two miles were pretty brutal; very little shade (next week I’m bringing my hat if it’s like this!), and I was feeling a little queasy thanks to breakfast not sitting well. The best part of the experience was sticking my face into a water fountain near the fire station. We all decided that it felt like jumping into a pool.

When we finally finished, I was actually a little relieved to hear that other groups had been having similar problems. It’s always discouraging to find yourself slowing down, even though that’s the smartest thing you can do in bad heat. And by the time I’d gone home and taken a cold shower (that felt remarkably good, honest), I didn’t feel that bad about today’s run. We pushed on as best we could, almost everyone finished the distance, and next week is going to be much better.

Well, I hope!