01212018 Long Run Funday

Today was a kind of long run.  We have our first 30K next weekend so we held back a bit and only ran for 2 hours and then did 30 minutes of hill climbs.

The run went okay, as usual I didn’t hit my stride till about mile 7 or 8 at which point running sucks less.  No offense to anyone who loves running and thinks it’s the greatest thing in the world.  If that works for you great.  For me it’s just a constant fight between me and Lad (Lazy Ass Dennis) who’s constantly trying to get me to stop.

With my and subsequently Running Wife Ana’s run walk schedule we’re doing right at 11 minute miles.  That’s 9 minutes of around 10:30 to 10:45 pacing and 1 minute of 17-18 minute pace recovery.   So far we’re able to keep that up reasonably well.

If we can push enough to keep that going for 26.2 miles in Little Rock on March 4th we’ll break 5 hours for our first marathon and honestly I think that woudl be super cool.   But realistically I assume we’re going to have to have a pee break at least once which adds a couple of minutes.  And we’ll need to get some water refills which adds a couple or three minutes.  So… if we break 5:15:00 that as well would be awesome.   If we break 5:30:00 that’s going to be okay with me.

With hill climbs we can do roughly 1 up and down every 5 minutes.   That works out to roughly 1200 feet of elevation change, 600 up, 600 down.   It’s a pretty long hill.  And most of it is super steep.   It has the colloquial name of “Lipbuster”.

This was also the first time we happened to be there while the Fleet Feet trail runners were heading out.  I’m guessing each pacer had a couple of people in tow.   There were 4 or 5 groupings if I remember right.

This week we’ll be taking it a bit easier, just a couple of maintenance runs with one hill session.   Hills are my nemesis right now after Pumpkin’ Holler gave me a case of Rhabdomyolosis 

And since there are very few ultra’s that aren’t just laps that don’t have some elevation change.  Hence adding hills.

It’s premature but with a half marathon distance being a weekly thing now, and a full scheduled, I’m hoping to get a 50K in this year, I think a 50K is doable for me.  So now a 50mile is a glimmer in the distance as a “I wonder if…”