Well, that went according to plan. Somewhat too much according to plan, to be honest. If you recall, I had decided to move my long run to Sunday in order to not run it in below-freezing conditions. As it turned out, Saturday’s weather was perfect for running and today’s was, well, a touch warm. If there’s one thing I really don’t like, its running in the heat, and by this time of year running in the mid-60s counts as running in the heat.

I did four 5-mile loops for 20 miles total. Between each loop I paused for some PowerAde and a granola bar to keep my energy level up, unlike last week’s 19 miler. That helped - I didn’t bonk in the slightest. My legs were a little tired by the end of it, but that’s only to be expected especially since I did just do 10 at above my race pace yesterday morning.

What I didn’t count on was the heat. Even though I downed about 60oz of fluid, I lost a total of four pounds during the run. Yup, four pounds, all of it sweated out. I started the run trying hard to keep the speed down to a 9:30 pace (and still ran a little fast), by the fourth lap I was really working to keep my speed up to a 9:30 (and still ran a little slow). Overall I had a 9:40 average, and by the end of it I was pretty well encrusted with salt. Not fun.

Anyway, at least I did it. The heat was at least partly my own fault for not getting started until close to noon, something I will be better about for my next long run (two weeks from now). The rest of it seems to be coming together nicely. I think that I’ll try to stretch my run on 1/8 up to 22-23 miles, as long as I’m feeing good at the 20 mile point, just to get that extra distance into play. I won’t worry too much about it though.

Hopefully your weekends went as well as mine, even if you didn’t make it to 30 miles!

Popularity: 3%