Long run

I didn't run Thurs-Saturday because it was American Thanksgiving and we were either eating, sleeping, or in the car (over 24 hrs total for that--yikes). The break was good, though.

Yesterday, Sunday, Gaz and I decided to do the run together. Fortunately she was accepting of my slower pace and we had a good run. Near the end, we stopped for expresso and I also went to the juice bar. My drink of choice was 'Pumping Iron': beets, carrots, ginger, and something else. It sounds a bit vile but goes down surprisingly smoothly mid-run, although I think I'll have to stress the 'not too much ginger' next time.

After about 1:48 for me, not including the 1/2 mile or so it took me to remember to restart my Garmin (Gaz had already racked up a couple of miles or so before joining me) we walked the rest of the way back to the start and parted. I jogged home, got there at 1:59:xx, had a quick glass of milk, and then set out. My goal was to do at least 2:30, and hopefully 2:45.

I went out until about 2:22 and turned back. There was construction on the path so I couldn't do 2:23 or whatever to be on the safe side.

Around 2:30 I was revisited by gut problems and I couldn't tell the extent of the damage, if any, because I was pretty sweaty. Fortunately, this resulted in a good shot of adrenaline and so my last mile was the fastest despite the internal turmoil. I made it home in 2:43. (Later on, I remembered the half mile unrecorded by Garmin so figured that I probably ran 2:49...that was a nice realization).

I got home and found nothing amiss, thank goodness, until the effects of the beet juice hit the porcelain. I'd momentarily forgot about drinking that, and wouldn't have guessed that it would take less than 1.5 hrs for the stuff to make it through my system anyway, so there was a few seconds of unease. LOL.

I'm glad I got that run in, but it did take a lot out of me and perhaps I should have stuck to 2:30. I didn't feel so good the rest of the day. In general, increasing these long runs feels like I'm starting from scratch, except that I feel pretty much the same throughout the runs. I get a bit more tired, but it's not as dramatic as the first time I started increasing long runs a few years ago. Since my muscles are constantly inflamed and/or depleted of glycogen, there isn't the same accumulation of fatigue during the run. I pay more afterward, but things are pretty level during.

Anyway, in 2:43, I covered 15.5 miles--so I guess I did 16 total. I would like to get to 18 by the end of Dec, which seems really possible.