Thursday Sept 9

Medium run, 8 miles, 1:27:29; splits 10:27, 11:56, 11:52, 10:23, 10:01, 11:26, 9:42 [I think that's wrong!], 11:41.

Since Frances was still tailing off, I thought it would be rainy and cool, but no. Windy and cloudy, but no more rain and surprisingly hot. I'm starting to worry about my right thigh; it's not quite an injury yet, but it's not getting noticeably better and I know I'm on the edge of one. It really hurts for the first 1/4 mile of a run, to the extent that I'm limping along. Then it gets better, and running on the right does seem to help. A library patron who's a marathoner and gives me advice said my shoes must be too small if I'm getting black toe, and the more I think about it the more I'm sure she's right. (She also expressed confidence that I'll come in under 5 hours, which is not beyond my wildest dreams but is my wildest dream--boy, that would be cool!) I haven't worn my new pair of NB 856s, so I should be able to exchange them... I'm paying attention to the all-downhill mile times, and clearly 10:30 is a reasonable slow time to aim for. But the Forerunner must have shorted me on mile 7, because I was done sooner than I should have been. To help with the thigh problem, I was repeating "run easy, run easy" to myself so as not to push too hard.

Friday Sept 10

Short run, 5 miles, 56:10; splits 11:14, 10:41, 11:30, 11:55, 10:50.

More chanting "run easy." A nice morning, clearing as the hour progressed. I saw two of the three dogs who live on the far side of Stanley Lake for the first time in ages. Young yellow Lab and grizzled black Lab (Labs are the most popular dog around here, and they sure have great personalities, but I wish there was a little more variety!). They came bounding over--I'm sure they could tell I was delighted to see them. It gave me a lift to be greeted by them; another pretty hard run. I miss when every week was "hey, this isn't so hard!" and that feeling of delighted confidence, but stubborn determination is good fuel too!

Sunday Sept 12

Long run, 18 miles, 3:22:22; splits 10:30, 9:22, 10:40, 9:59, 12:30, 12:45, 12:12, 10:38, 9:36, 10:00, 10:51, 10:55, 11:37, 12:34, 13:56, 10:48, 12:02, 11:28.
WEEK TWELVE
Miles for the week: 36 (5/8/5/18)
Weight 116

Whoooh! "If you can run 18, you can run a marathon" is the conventional wisdom, and I did it. I even felt like if I had to, I *could* run more. We didn't get to bed until 2am because Jonathan was in a show ("Smokin' Through the 70s" at EPAC, he was great!) and unwinding afterwards is important (and fun) for both of us. But I woke up at 7am, eager to get the run out of the way & go back to bed!

The usual painful first mile, but it was a big boost to be doing a different course from the 16 miles I'd done 3 times now. A good long steep downhill at the beginning, just like Steamtown, with an encouraging 9:22 even to the tune of "run easy, run easy." This is the first time I've run the full length of Bowbridge Road (from 858 to 267), so that was cool. Then doing a lot of 267, which I've driven a million million times in the past 15 years, was cool. The shoulder is broad and mostly flat, so even though the traffic was very heavy, it wasn't too unpleasant. I certainly was tiring after mile 12, but I had a break coming up. I planted a water bottle at the intersection of the St. Joe's Road on Friday night, so that I could try a tangerine PowerGel for the last section of the run (as I plan to do on marathon day). I got to the water bottle around mile 13.5. Sucked down the PowerGel (not too bad--I chose tangerine because it has double caffeine), took 2 ibuprofens, drank half the water and tucked the bottle into my Camelbak (not designed for that & not very comfortable). I've been avoiding the ibuprofen thing before but now I need it. (I took one after my long run on Monday and I think it helped). In Non-Runner's Marathon trainer they practically recommend gobbling them like candy, which I resisted, but it makes sense to let them help with inflamation on these really long runs.

The strategy worked! The last 4 1/2 miles weren't too bad even with 4 major hills. I wouldn't say it was an easy run, but it was manageable--in some ways better than any of the runs from the last 2 weeks. Jonathan greeted me at the door by saying "Welcome, marathoner!" & pretending I was crossing the finish line. :*) I can do this!

Animal encounters: forgot to mention this before, but 858 always seems to have large numbers of squished slugs being cannibalized by other slugs. Ugh. A black dog who slunk around growling, tail curled under and looking at me out of the corner of his eyes, until his (unpleasant-seeming) owner bellowed at him. Where I saw the donkey on Bowbridge Road (the pen is at an angle and most of it isn't clearly visible from the road, so I haven't seen it frequently), it turns out there are 3, two adult and one young or mini donkey, spotted white and brown. Domestic turkeys in a coop on Kinney Road, then 6 wild turkeys in the very next field. I thought I was done with wildflowers, but saw wild sunflowers today (first time on a run, I've seen them from the car elsewhere in the county). Also nipplewort (new to me), and a very pretty grass (red base, reddish seeds) that I'm going to try to identify. Fall is coming--the locust trees are crispy brown, apples are ripe, Russian olive berries are showing red, and some maples are already turning.
- posted by Hilary @ 10:40 PM