20 Miles, Finally

It's official.  I've now completed a 20+ mile run.

The final 5 miles were a struggle, and a relied on the walk/run approach to get through it.  I'd run a mile and then walk for 60-90 seconds, and then run to the next mile marker before doing the walk interval again.  I think it's more psychological than anything else at that point because it's my brain that needs the interval rest more than my legs or my lungs.  Sure, things were hurting, but surprisingly my pace doesn't bog down much.  But my mind had a hard time grappling with 5 more miles to go when my feet and hip flexors were griping at me.  And even though my heart rate wasn't too bad, I was feeling pretty winded there at the end.   Taking the last 5 miles a mile at a time, and looking forward to those minute to minute-and-a-half rest walks helped me get through to the goal. 

I set out at 6:30AM in cool temperatures with the sun still below the hills.  It was very pretty and serene.  A few other runners were out on the trail as I started out slowly, using the first few miles to warm up.  By the time I was finishing at around 9:20, the temp had gotten a bit warmer, but conditions were still pretty perfect. Thankfully, I didn't have to deal with any wind at all, and since the course was flat and the air temperature moderate, conditions were just about flawless.

I kept track of my splits at 5 mile intervals. 

Split #1: 41:40 (8:28/mile)...HRavg = 137; HRpeak = 143
Split #2: 41:20 (8:24/mile)...HRavg = 136; HRpeak = 144
Split #3: 42:40 (8:40/mile)...HRavg = 149; HRpeak = 153 (*)
Split #4: 44:13 (8:59/mile)...HRavg = 141; HRpeak = 148

That third split was kind of interesting.  My heart signs might seem to indicate I had picked up the pace, but my pace was actually slower than either of the first two.  I was 90-120 minutes into the run by then, so it may have been due to cardiac drift and perhaps a little dehydration.  I watered up pretty good at mile 15 and even swallowed a Clif gel.  The walking brought my average pace way down over the final 5 miles, but even my peak heart rate during that stretch was less than on the previous one.

The walk breaks are great to look forward to, but by those final 15 miles I was stiffening up and it was very hard to start running again after the walk break.  It would usually take about 200 yards or so to get loose enough again to resume my typical form and pace.

Speaking of which, Galloway champions this walk/break approach, but he also advises running these training runs 1:30 to 2:00 slower than my expected race pace.  I really think my race pace will be what I ran today, so I should strive to bring my average pace down to 9:30-10:00 for these long, slow runs.  I can that with a combination of just switching to a more shuffling gate and incorporating the walk break from the very beginning.  I didn't do that today.  I will next time.

Next time is scheduled to be two weeks away when I'll try to cover 21 miles.