I ran a little earlier than I normally do on Saturday, because Sasha had to be somewhere. Added to this is the fact that I ran late yesterday evening, and I was finishing over 30 miles of running in about 13 hours. In hindsight I probably did not eat enough yesterday evening knowing that I was going to run a long run in the morning. Anyhow, the goal was to start of at a brisk pace in the 6:30-6:40 range, and to slowly speed up over the course of the run. Things started off well and we made it through the first quarter of our run to the first turn-around in 31:15. We made it back to Sasha's house to finish about 10.18 miles in 1:01:35 (30:20) and I took off my coat, hat and pants. After I got rid of the excess clothing I felt like I was barely making any effort and I was running considerably faster. Sasha kept having to ask me to back off the pace just a little bit so that I would not drop him. We finished the next quarter of our run in 29:11 (1:30:46) and I am thinking that I definitely would break the 2 hour mark for a run that I will round down to 20.35 miles since we do not know the exact distance due to the construction. Sasha ask me to take him through the 6 mile mark (of the last 10 miles) at which point I would take off and finish faster. However, once we hit the marker I could tell almost immediately that something was wrong. I felt like there was nothing in my legs to really get going faster. So, I made no effort to hit 5:20 pace like I was planning, but I instead only got into the mid 5:30's. I made it a mile and a half at this pace, and then really started to hurt. I realized that I was running out of fuel, and I struggled to get back to Sasha's house as quickly as possible, running the last mile in 6:51 (10:01 for the last 1.5) and finished the run in 2:01:18. So, on the positive end of things, I still averaged under 6:00 pace for the entire run despite crashing, and I felt really, really good until it was time for me to speed up (about 16 miles in). I wonder if I could have avoided the crash altogether if I simply exercised some caution and never took off. On the negative side of the spectrum, I ran out of fuel after only about 18 miles of a 20 mile long run that never got very fast. That is a negative sign for my marathon hopes unless I can really get healthy enough to put in some serious mileage. When I ran out of fuel, I also crashed hard, and I crashed fast. Within 2 miles I was already barely breaking 7:00 pace. If this was a real marathon I would have definitely gotten into the mid 8's before I finished. However, I did run a 10 mile run that I didn't finish until after 8:30 last night, I didn't eat enough yesterday evening, and I didn't take any fluids at all during the run, all things that are going to lead to a higher likelihood of a crash. So, maybe things will be alright after all. Post run my left heel and foot are pretty sore. It is all due to calf tightness I am sure, although the primary sore spot is on the calcaneus where the achilles tendon attaches, so the location is a little different than normal. I think that I will spend some time massaging it out this evening. I will rub some wintercrest (I think) on it as well which I got from the St. George Marathon.
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