Me vs. Chuck... 15 Miles on the Charles River

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I loved spending time there in college and miss it now, so I decided to execute my 15-miler along the Charles River. I parked my car on Mass Ave just before the bridge. Since the meter had a 2 hour limit and my run took about 2.5, including stretching, I got my first parking ticket in a long time. Compared to the toll my body paid, the $25 was in the noise.

Well I was particularly nervous about this run. I guess that's because I've had some rough runs lately. And 15 miles is nothing for me to shrug at. I've attached a little clip I took before I left the condo. And here's a pic I took of all my gear strewn out on the bed before I packed up and left.



So how'd the run go you ask? I'd say pretty well. Aside from some mild-to-severe blisters on my right foot (its always the right because its smaller) and some mild-to-severe chafing (I should've put body glide on my legs even though I had spandex on) the run went extremely well. As a matter of fact, I shaved about 10 seconds off my pace as compared to my 14-miler 2 weeks ago. So that's an average of an 8:20 mile! That puts me 11 miles away from the marathon but 10 seconds UNDER my goal pace. So I'm feeling pretty darn happy about it with almost 3 months of training still ahead.

My legs started getting very heavy around mile 11. But thanks to my miserable 12-miler last weekend, I was used to heavy legs and was able to shake it off. I expected a sense of nostalgia running along the Charles since I really haven't done so since college. But it felt somewhat foreign. I think the reason here is that I never spent much time there in the dead of winter. There's a bit of snow still in Boston and parts of the river were even frozen over.

Please checkout the run data, I worked hard for it:

Splits
Graph

Good, Bad, and Ugly

Well a few things have happened since my last post. Mostly, the last week and a half has been very tough for me. I think the most difficult thing for me has been recovering from some of these longer weekend runs. Following the 14-miler a couple weeks ago my legs were pretty sore. This contributed to a very difficult 12-miler a week later. From the start of the group run last Saturday, my quads felt pretty heavy and tight. To add insult to injury, the pathway along the Minuteman trail was mostly iced over. Especially on the return trip, which is slightly uphill the whole way back, my legs were really starting to burn as I lost traction. So anyway, the bad news is that the runs have been getting a little tougher as my body adjusts to the recovery period for the longer runs.

The good news is that I logged a 5-miler at a respectable clip, averaging a 7:48/mi before my 100m strides. This is a bit of a milestone for me as I've been dying to log a medium distance run at a sub-8 pace.

The Ugly is the running conditions outside. I already alluded to the icy path on my Group Run last weekend. Well, I was restricted to a treadmill run on Monday. And yesterday, I completed a 7-miler outside in the slush, snow, and rain. My feet were completely drenched by mile 1. The sidewalks were half covered by slush which made running especially challenging too. So I'm starting to get a bit worn out between juggling the time and finding decent conditions. But this is exactly what i expected when signed up for this race to begin with. So there's nothing wrong with par for the course.

Some of you have been asking for more data, on a summary level. Below is some stats from my runs. Note: this doesn't include any workouts on the stationary bike, pool, or Cybex Arc Trainer/Elliptical.

Since training started on December 14:

17 Runs
Distance Run - 114.36 Miles
Avg Run Distance (6.7 Miles)
Time Spent Running - 17:46:43 (h:m:s)
Avg Speed - 6.5mph (9:14 min/mile which includes walking between 100m strides at end of workouts)
Calories Burned: 12,733

Longest Yet

For those reading, my apologies for waiting so long in between posts. My work schedule has been insane since Christmas break. I've been in Columbus, GA working at Ft Benning. I managed to get time off from work this weekend which allowed for me to pick up the pieces of the lost training opportunities during the week. The only workout I logged this past week was a slow 5-miler on the hotel treadmill on Tuesday. With yesterday off, I spent an hour on the stationary bike. My intent was just to get a decent workout in without wearing myself out. Because I knew today would be the longest run of my life.

In addition to my longest run, this was also one of my favorite runs in a long time. This is because I got to run completely along a river for the first time since I ran the Mississippi in Iowa for my first half marathon. This time, the river separated Alabama and Georgia. I ran a 14 mile out-and-back route of 7 miles. And whats more is that I exceded my expectations for speed. I beat my goal of an 8:30 pace and squeezed out an 8:29 average. And per Jack Fultz's instructions, I ran the second half a good clip faster than my first.

I drank only 2 fuel-belt bottles and ate one Gu pack along the way. The temperature was about 32 deg (better than Massachusetts' 5 deg today). But I faced a pretty good head wind on the return path. Cardiovascularly, I felt spectacular. My legs felt a bit heavy into the wind from 8 or 9 miles on. But all and all I was quite pleasantly surprised. I believe the next long wind is actually a shorter distance, at 12 miles.

I know this next week will be another very long one on base. My hopes are to just get 2 decent medium runs in.

I have no data to share this week because I don't have my Garmin dock to upload the run. When I get home, I'll try to compile some more intersting stats, including total milage to date etc. Reef, that's for you.

Thanks for reading!