Today was supposed to be the first 20 miler of the 2006-07 training season. We all received very clear directions about where to park, near the East entrance to Barton Springs, yet somehow the bulk of the Gazelles ended up about 1/4 mile away at the other end of the Robert E. Lee complex. That meant that I had do do some walking around to find them and came up on them just as they were heading out. Thon and Mike met me coming the other way though, and recommended that we stick with the original plan and run on the footbridge under Barton Springs Rd (everyone else just ran across it). Fair enough.

One thing that I will say about today was that there was plenty of opportunities to drink! Well, probably less than there should have been, but a lot more than there were on some of our other runs. It was about 80 degrees with 80% humidity, and it felt a lot stickier and heavier even at 5:30am than I was hoping for, so the water was much appreciated. I did stop at MoPac for a quick gulp, then we ran up LAB and Exposition to O’Henry middle school for our first official water at about 2.5 miles into the run. There we briefly caught up with the pack, but they took off as we were drinking and it took us about 2 more miles to reel them in, resisting the urge to run fast and catch up.

Somewhere along here Erine caught up with us, and when he accelerated off Mike stuck with him and pulled away too. We’d see him near the turn-around, but that was it. Thon and I had a nice, relaxed run, chatting about this and that, as people floated in and out of the group; Leslie was looking strong and pulled away as we were crossing over on 35th St., and everyone seemed to be doing pretty well. We turned left onto Shoal Creek and had another chance to drink almost immediately; this was great.

We certainly took our time at the waterstops, and I made sure to stay properly hydrated. I took my first Gu at this point, too. All told I put down a little under 1,200 calories between the run and my recovery drinking afterwards, but I think it worked - I never felt too hot or weak. Anyway, we took off from there and ended up in a very pleasant little pack. Jay and Emily had been running with us but they peeled back; they’re not doing a marathon this fall so “only” running 12 miles was all they had in mind. Turn left, turn right, and we’re on Great Northern and, yes, more water! Only this time it was probably my least favorite sports’ drink, something with a lot of protein in it. I had some anyway, and took another Gu. Amazingly enough we had even more water at the end of the street, and this time I even liked it, so I drank a lot. We were right on nine miles at this point.

As we headed East back towards Shoal Creek, Mike and Erine were coming back from the turn-around along with a group of fast guys. In fact, Mike was the only one of that group wearing a shirt on such a hot and humid day (don’t worry, I was appropriately covered myself). He’s in good company now! We ran up to Anderson which only gave us 9.75 miles (the parking lot mixup, remember) but rather than go up to Steck we decided to turn around there and catch up with Carrie, Scud, and some other fast people who’d just gone by. That would be our group for most of the run back.

At this point, normal people would be panicking. After all, I was (almost) ten miles away from my car! Even though this was my first really long run this season though, I never really worried about it. I wasn’t worried about finishing, I wasn’t even concerned about finishing strong. I just concentrated on keeping up my form, trying to use soft footfalls, running moderately, and drinking a ton of PowerAde.

Alright, so there were a few hitches on the way back. We picked up the pace and were running 8:45s for a couple of miles, although we did settle those out pretty quickly. Still the downhill sections are much easier than the uphills, and we kept up a pretty snappy pace all the way back down to 35th St. At that point I decided to slow it down a bit, despite the urging of the crowd; I’ve got six 20 milers scheduled before White Rock, so I don’t want to do anything stupid. Also, this was my first 40+ mile week in a long time, and I was getting tired. Not from the run, just a cumulative tiredness, and don’t ask me how I knew that but… somehow, I did. Getting in tune with your body can be a little weird.

So anyway, I relaxed down Exposition and bumped into the gang again at the waterstop when they were leaving. I also met up with Leslie and Cincinnati Mike who was taking the last few miles a lot slower than the first 12-14 because of the heat. There weren’t any coolers there, but they had full 16-ounce bottles of PowerAde which was nice in its own way; I downed a bottle pretty quickly, then we hooked up for the 3 miles back to the pool. I ended up running with Mike and, while we did stop at MoPac for more water and a quick wash from the shower, we kept up the pace pretty well. Not picking it up, but not slacking off either, often sub-9:00.

Mike manage to decline all of my offers for him to run ahead, but with about 1/4 mile to go Alex caught up to us (he’d done 22) and swung on by, and that was just too tempting, so I got to finish the run by myself. Total mileage was a little over 19.5, which was fine. Total time was 3:16 with 13(!) minutes of waterstop rest, for an average running pace of 9:24. That’s a bit slower than I was doing at the end of last year, but just fine for the conditions and relative position of this run. Add in some stretching, a soak at Barton Springs and breakfast tacos at Mi Madre’s, and it was one hell of a way to spend the morning.

In the coming weeks I’d like to see these numbers get back down to where they were last fall, with a running pace more like 9:00 and a lower average heart rate. Still, between the course and the weather that may not be too far away, and I’ve got enough time to get there.

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