Week 19: Twenty-two miles

I did my 22-mile run yesterday (Monday) instead of Sunday, because it had snowed Saturday night, and Sunday was expected to be very cold and windy. Yesterday was better... but not much.

I started out not really knowing where I was going to run until I got up in the morning. My first plan was to run around the house for an hour or so to warm up, but when I got around the back of the house on my very first loop, I found the driveway still very icy and slippery in the shade. So that was no good. Since all the usual dirt roads and trails I run on were also likely to have frozen and icy patches, I figured I'd better run on sidewalks. I decided to drive into town and run on the paved trail that runs alongside Valley Blvd between Dennison and Curry. It's just about exactly one mile, and I could just run back and forth on it, taking a break in the middle to drive over to mom's for a pit stop.

Sounded good. But, it didn't work out that way. By the time I got to town, parked and ready to run, it was already nearly 10 am. Almost as soon as I started running, I had to go to the bathroom -- even though I went before I left. (That's one reason I like to do my first couple of hours at home -- with a bathroom handy.) I only did four miles before packing up and heading to mom's. By then, it was nearly 11 am, and I still had 18 miles to do.

So I decided to leave my truck at mom's and run back along Valley. I figured I could get in another mile in the time it would take to drive back and park, and at least save myself a little time. If I needed another break, I'd just run back, or else call mom on my cell phone to come and get me.

The first thing that happened on my way back was that I tripped on a little metal marker sticking up in the middle of the trail at the side of the road and fell on my right hip -- exactly the same place I fell on the road on my last long run, when I got startled by a couple of dogs that ran out of nowhere barking at me. Ow. Well, I got up and kept going. I was feeling very, very frustrated by then, knowing I'd be out running till at least 4:30, on a cold, windy day. I spent some time on the run back trying to get some equanimity back, telling myself I was going to be out there all day whether I fussed and fumed about it or not, so I might as well just try to enjoy the run.

When I got back to Dennison, I decided to run up Dennison to Highline and back, which would be another two miles. I'd been timing my miles using my new watch, since I finally had a route marked off in one-mile increments, as well as I could measure in my truck. I was disappointed to find that most of my miles were taking 18 - 19 minutes, even though I was using a 1:2 run/walk ratio and didn't think I was going any slower than usual. Were these miles really miles? It's hard to get a real guage of how well I'm doing when I don't have well-marked courses to run.

Anyway, after that, I settled in and did the Dennison-to-Curry mile on Valley back a few times, until I was on my 16th mile and running out of water. I considered just having mom bring me water and continuing to run, but I decided a bathroom stop wouldn't go amiss, so I had her pick me up and drive me back to her place, to fill up my water bottle and use the bathroom.

From there, I decided to run down to the park for one mile and do my last five miles on the trail. I figured it would be unfrozen by then, having been mid-40s all day, with lots of sun.

I got a bit of a second wind running down to the park, but by the time I got there, the sky had clouded up, and the wind was freezing, and I was tired, and the last five miles were really hard. But I pushed through them, and finished at 4:40 pm. Then mom drove me back to her place for a lovely salmon dinner.

I'm tired today, but not sore. A day of rest and I'll be fine. But, boy, that was a difficult run. The cold just sapped all my energy out of me and made it very unpleasant to be outside running all day. My route was repetitive and boring. And getting off to such a late start set a bad tone for the rest of the day.

Physically, my hardest run so far remains the 10-mile, but the 22-mile was by far the hardest mentally. I really, really did not want to be out there for nearly seven hours in the cold. I can only hope the weather's better for the 24 and 26-mile runs.