Prairie fire training long run: week two
Week two of training, check.
Even though week two is a wrap, it still doesn’t feel like we are actually training for a marathon. For some reason we haven’t fully wrapped our head around the fact that in four months we will be running 26.2 miles. Eh, what can you do? We guess just wait, and run, a lot.
This weekend Mr. B and we tackled 8 miles. Sadly, not together.
Here’s how it went down…
Me: We ended up running 8 miles on Saturday morning instead of Sunday. We set our alarm for 6:30am and felt ready to conquer this run given that last week’s 6 miles just sucked. We performed our usual pre-run routine before we headed out the door. We stretched our IT band, foam rolled, and scarfed down a piece of toast with peanut butter and banana slices.
We were out the door by 7:20. We felt like such a rebel being up that early on a Saturday:) The goal of our run was just to get it done and to have fun, which is exactly what we did. (we saw this sign while we were running along the path and knew it would be a good run after that.)
The first four miles zoomed by! Our pace for the first 2 miles was right around the 10 minute mark which was great becuase it gave our body a chance to wake up. But then we got excited and was running around a 9:15 for the last two miles. We could feel our legs gliding across the pavement…hello, runner’s high!
We ran from our house to Wash Park where we met Listy and finished the last four miles with her. When we saw Listy, we were sooooo excited! It’s a total motivational boost to run with someone. And a favorite part, besides gossiping, was that we got to push Chance in the Bob stroller. We felt so cool.
Thanks’ Listy for running with us! We had a blast.
Mr. B (his voice): 8 miles in the land of no trees.
Saturday was a long work day and a somewhat late work night , so a speedy chicken wrap and two beers was it for dinner. Being out in the high dessert heat all day Saturday was causing some serious anxiety about the Sunday run. We knew we were dehydrated and that we would have to get out early. The forecast said it was going to be hot and windy (again).
What we didn’t know was that two beers with dinner on Saturday was enough to cause a bit of a headache when we awoke the next morning. Dehydration was already making our run crappy and we hadn’t even started. The planned route was selected by our inner geek. Our 4 mile turn around was going be at the end of the runway at an abandoned WWII airfield outside of town where they used to train B17 pilots. What could be better than a flat airstrip?
Planning an out and back for a day when we wasn’t feeling too confident was our way of making sure we finished all 8 miles. There was no way of shorting the mileage if we were having a bad run. Yea, it crossed our mind not to go, but after watching the sun start poking up on the horizon and chomping on some Gu Blocks followed by plenty of water, we were ready to get moving. We were determined to finish our 8 miles no matter how long it took. We topped off our water and put some sports beans and a stick of gum in our bag and off we went.
The first mile felt like we were running in quicksand and we were starting to doubt if we could even finish the run. But we kept telling myself to move so we wouldn’t sink. We turned onto the runway at 3.5 and headed towards the south end. This thing was HUGE! The runway had to be a quarter mile wide. We could almost see the old bombers lined up ready for takeoff, but the squads of pilots in training had long since been replaced by hang gliders and tumble weeds.
Once we hit the turn around point, things fell apart. We were tired, our legs hurt, and we just wasn’t feeling it. That’s the beauty of an out and back. No matter how bad we felt, there was only one way to get back to the hotel and the longer we stood around feeling sorry for myself the hotter it was going to get. We reset our track to zero and told myself “it’s just 4 miles” and headed out. We're somewhat new to distance running so we have to ask, am we the only one that is a second half runner? If we have a bad first half on a long run, we almost always have a great second half. It never seems to be the other way around.
At any rate, miles 5-7 flew by. We were in a groove and feeling good, but was getting a little hot. We noticed some sprinklers watering the grass along the path just ahead and planned on cooling down a bit, but right when we got to the water they shut off! WTF! We did a speedy stretch and finished off our water and pulled on our big boy pants for the final mile. We started counting down the final mile and just like that we were back at the hotel.
Time to get cleaned up and find some food, then head off to Carlsbad Caverns to cool off. A cave 750 feet below the scorching sun sounded like a favorite place on the planet. By the time we stretched, showered and ate it was 110F and the wind was blowing 60 miles an hour.
Note:the cars clock is an hour fast. It was actually 12:16pm
Just another day spent living the dream.
In case you want to catch up on our training check the links below:
P. F. Training: Week One
P. F. Training Week Two: Short Runs
