NC 20

After much hemming and hawing, I decided that it did indeed make the most sense for me to get in my 20 miler today. I felt so sluggish during yesterday afternoon's run that I was sure it wouldn't go well this morning. Not to mention today would be day #5 of running, which is a lot of days in a row for me. And it was the first day of vacation, and I hated to be gone all morning. But, the reality is that Sam was plenty happy to spend the morning with Neenie and Pippi and likely didn't miss me at all :-) They went fishing and then up to the pool, and I got a chance to run, so it was a win win!

Fishing!

Having fun!

At the edge of the pool

I headed out a little before 7:30 am. It was bright and sunny but not yet 60 degrees so it was very comfortable. The Landing Course is closed on Mondays, so I ran the cart paths as the first portion of my run. The workers were already out working on the course, so with all the activity, I didn't see much wildlife, but did see a big Egret, a few Great Blue Herons and a pair of Red-Headed Woodpeckers, so that was cool. I got back to the house with my Garmin reading 6.25 and stopped for a quick bathroom break. 

Then it was onto portion #2 of the run. I headed out on the roads to the River Lodge. I tried to take the old dirt road along the river, but it was so overgrown that I aborted and just stuck to the roads instead. At the lodge, I took the "nature path" through the woods and along the golf course, before hooking back up with the roads. Then along the main drag to the gate, onto the gravel path along the Berm. At least that stretch allowed me to be on a bit of dirt! I got back to the cart path that crosses my parent's street with my watch reading right around 14 miles, so I hopped back on the cart path going backwards, knowing I just needed to put myself on auto-pilot and follow the path back home and I would get in my 20. I was still feeling pretty good, although the day was warming up. 

Things went OK until right around 16.5 miles when the balls of my feet and my quads just started to feel really trashed. I stopped to stretch a bit and when I started up again, just could never get back into gear. I had taken a bit of a risk from the beginning, going out at under 9:00 pace, which was comfortable at the time and felt right considering the terrain, but that, combined with the flat course and all the pounding on the concrete just caught up with me. I haven't looked at the Garmin data yet, but I know I slowed down a fair bit in those final 3 miles. I did manage to squeak in at just under 3:00 though, so the overall pace was still decent, but the final miles certainly weren't pretty! Ah well. I still got in the 20 miles and kept going, even when it would have been oh so nice to stop, so I'll call it a good run. I did find it interesting that it appeared I must have been running right around a pace that was my body's threshold for being unable/unwilling/uninterested in ingesting fuel over a long period of time. I got in a 1/2 packet of Honeystinger energy chews at mile 4, a Z-bar at mile 8, another 1/2 packet of chews at mile 12, and then struggled to get in another 1/2 packet at mile 16, but that was all I could handle. I'm definitely have not yet figured out how to get enough fuel into myself on these long runs. It worked out fine, but I do wonder if I wouldn't have slowed down quite so much at the end if I had had more to eat? Who knows. I guess this is all just a constant experiment of one - I am certainly still working on what works for me! :-)