Saturday, October 10, 2009

Mojo is Back

Ran a marathon last night at 11 pm and what a perfect night. A cool middle 60s deg, ¾ moon, slight breeze, and a peaceful 3 mile dirt track with trees providing an umbrella from the fallen dew. This was supposed to be an easy 20 mile long run, but my body told me different and wanted more. What was so magical was my last lap felt just as good and strong as my first lap. I could have easily run more but my brain said don’t over do it and stick to the training plan to avoid injury. My legs felt great with plenty in the tank for a faster pace, but the long run is not about speed – It’s about endurance building. I know not all my long runs will feel this good as I ramp the mileage up, but everything felt perfect last night. The one thing I changed was taken a gel every 30 minutes from the very start instead of waiting a couple of hours and taken one every 60 – 90 minutes. I also usually try different solid foods on my long run to see what works best (figs, PB&J, Boost,…), and this is a good thing, but this time I stayed focused on gels only. My total for the week is 50 miles, and that is including my speedwork session. Although I lost about 20 seconds on my 800s (4 X 3:21), it felt good to push the legs, and the time will come back as I ease into it.
Up to this point in my training plan, I’m pleased with my progress considering we are refueling Unit 1 reactor at work which requires 60+ hours a week for 4 weeks, and it’s all night shift work (Next outage I get day shift). My plan was to not lose any ground on my long runs and weekly mileage during the outage, and now I find myself ahead of schedule. Just one more week of this and I get to swap around and sleep when most people do. Nevertheless, it is cooler and more peaceful at night running when I’m not working. I hope everyone else is enjoying the cooler temps!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds wonderful. Not all runs are like that and truly need to be appreciated;-) I have also started to like running in the dark - not seeing the road ahead makes it just easier to stay in the moment.

Lindsay said...

glad you had a good run, especially on a long run!

unit 1 reactor, sounds like fun power plant/nuke talk. i'm currently at a (coal) power plant and we are about to go into an exciting outage, so i know the feeling. hopefully we'll both still be able to find time to run!

Hone said...

Good job on the long run. Night running is the best.

I think I am going to try to eat earlier in mine. That might make all the difference.

I wonder what it would be like to finish a run feeling strong. I am jealous.

DawnB said...

wow sounds awesome

Beth said...

Congratulations on a great run. It sounds like you are figuring out what works for you. Nice!