Week 15: Eighteen miles

5:20 hours, 2:3 minute run/walk ratio

It was a good run today. Finally, the weather was decent, sunny but with a cool breeze, and not too hot. I was able to keep up my running intervals the whole way, instead of walking the last couple of miles, as I have for the last few long runs.

I didn't stop my stopwatch for any of my bathroom or water breaks, I just let it run the whole time. I figured I might as well time it the way it will be done for the real marathon, to get a more realistic idea of how long it might take me to finish. With breaks and all, I averaged around 17.8-minute miles, which would make about a seven-and-a-quarter hour marathon. Hm. Well, that's what I thought at the beginning.

I'm not terribly sure about my mileage this time, though. I might have done more than 18 miles. I started out at Highline and Dennison, went down Dennison to Valley, then Valley to Golden Hills Blvd, and down Golden Hills to Westwood to Meadowbrook Park. I started my first loop around the trail, but found the lower end of the trail was covered in sheep! Our local flock of sheep was staying down there. There was a water truck filling a trough for the sheep to drink. I tried to ask the guy with the truck whether it would bother his sheep for me to run through them, but he didn't speak any English. Anyway, I decided not to run through the sheep, but turned around and went back. Along the way, I ran into the path that cuts across the big loop and makes a smaller loop, so I went around that. By timing it, I think one smaller loop was about half a mile, so I did four miles counting two loops as a mile. That was the first place where I wasn't sure about my mileage.

Then I headed back up Westwood to Golden Hills Blvd to Valley, running back the way I'd come. When I got to Snyder, I turned down to the school to run at the track, but there was my second confusion of the day. The gates leading to the track all appeared to be locked. I saw people running on the track, so I knew they'd gotten in there somehow, but I didn't know how. I ended up going back out to Snyder, down to Tehachapi Blvd, and across to the other end of the track, where there was an unlocked gate. I did two miles at the track, plus an extra lap to make the time come out right for another mile, and headed back to Valley and Dennison and home. So I'm not sure how close to 18 miles I was. I'm fairly sure it was more than 18, rather than less, but I don't know by how much.

In any case, I got my long run in, and another week's training is done!