Monday, August 28, 2006

20 Miler #1 done, no matter how unelegant

ORN: 20.0 miles, 3:36:47, 10:50/mile

Humidity. Again. Oppressively so today. And your intrepid running blogger forged forth to do the first of two scheduled 20 milers.

Actually, I had to run today or not do it at all, due to a full weekend of business meetings in Chicago. We had rain overnight, forecast for rain today, and the air was just heavy. I decided to try to do the run at a 9:40 pace and set out to do just that.

The first 10 went well, with spilts:

9 45, 9 36, 9 18, 9 47, 9 44
9 59, 9 36, 9 53, 9 25, 9 31.

This got me down to the heart of the Purdue campus, pretty much as morning classes were changing. Boy did I feel old.

And the heat really set in at this point. The sun came out and the stifling nature of the morning set in further. I really felt lousy, but had to keep going. I shifted to a run 4 minutes/walk 1 minute pattern and that helped. I just plodded out the rest of the run and the splits for the last 10 miles showed it:

10 40, 10 51, 11 24, 11 19, 12 03.
11 49, 12 29, 12 23, 13 30, 13 25.

It got tougher and tougher.

I got it done. I drank fluids all afternoon and let's just say it was all input and no output. So, there was probably a good bit of dehydration going on. I did have Gatorade set up every 2.5 miles or so...perhaps not enough.

So, there, one 20 miler done. Need to do it again in 2 weeks. 5 weeks to go to Portland, where I'm really banking on it being not humid!!!

Persevere. Even in the humidity.

2 comments:

Darrell said...

Wow, what a difference on those last 10. You toughed it out and that's the important part. They say that which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right? Looks like you'll be darn strong in Portland. I hope the weather is a little kinder on the next one.

So what is the ususal weather in Portland in September?

Anonymous said...

Good Job getting it done. The humidity is a killer!