Having slept through yesterday's group workout, I decided to tackle the dreaded 20-miler solo. However, when my running buddy Tisha heard this, she volunteered to do part of the route with me and recruited our other running buddy, Cole, to do a leg as well. Thank goodness for my friends! I never would have made it through the run today alone. Today was also my first run with the Spy belt. Normally I make fun of people who run with everything but the kitchen sink (I had my water bottle too), but I needed my phone to coordinate "hand-offs" with my buddies. :-) I don't hate the belt as much as I thought I would, although I felt like a dork and a half.
The run started off ok. Cole and I dropped his car off downtown so that he could do a full six miles with me and not have to circle back. (Keep in mind that both he and Tisha ran 20 yesterday with the group). I did the double-secret add-on in Hyde Park, stupidly choosing a loop that involved Handasyde hill (the killer hill from the Hyde Park Blast). After 3 miles or so on my own, Cole met me at the coffee shop in O'Bryonville and we went through Walnut Hills, Eden Park, then on to downtown where we did the ever-scenic route around Linn Street to the Clay Wade Bailey bridge. Highlights of this section of the run include:
- Almost getting hit by some j-hole running a red light :-)
- Some dude getting arrested at 7th and Plum Street downtown
- The dogwood trees in Eden Park...Spring has sprung fo shizzle
Cole left me at the bridge and I proceeded into Kentucky, through Covington, Newport, then back across Purple People to Cincy. (Head Running Spot Coach wanted us run the Pig course backward, so we wouldn't get bored with running the same route every week.) I have to say that running the route in this direction made the bridges much easier...almost felt like cheating. By the time I got to Eastern Avenue though, my tummy was grumpy, my legs were tight, and I had "Help I'm Alive" by Metric stuck in my head. Not exactly motivating. To make matters worse, there were no Porta Potties at Schmidt field anymore. Hiss, growl.
Thankfully my rendezvous point with Tish was just around the corner and she had a lovely thermos of Gatorade waiting for me. This perked me up a little, enough to get me up the Delta hill to the UDF. Ha. We were supposed to keep going up Delta to Erie, but what I really wanted to do was have Tisha go back and get the car while I laid on the sidewalk. I compromised and agreed to run up Linwood, which seemed like a faster route back to Chez Ives. I was very, very surly (and pretty horrible looking), however Tisha kept me entertained with stories from yesterday's run and last week's pub crawl. Apparently one of our coaches showed up on St. Patty's Day in really tight holiday boxers. Ha ha ha, ew.
Somehow we made it back home...thanks to my patient coach. It takes really, really good friends to accompany someone on a long run, especially when that someone is me. I can be a bit of a handful sometimes. :-P
Even with my punking out at the end, I still managed to get in 20.3 miles. Average pace was 9:29, and since I was doing 10-11 minute miles (or slower) on the last stretch, I must have been hauling it for the first 16?
Not sure what my problem was today but I really think it's good to have excrutiatingly painful workouts now and then. The first 20-miler of the season is never great for me anyway, and learning to run through the pain is good training. Right???
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