Diary of a long run

Sunday I went on a 9 mile run on the Sammamish River Trail with H another good friend of ours. If you have ever wondered how a normal long run goes this is a break down of how it went.

I started out about two hours before we had to leave to meet up with our friend to go on the run. I wanted to update my iPod with a play list to listen to on my run. I had made a play list on the blog here but didn't actually do it in iTunes yet. In trying to get some of H's music into my iTunes I ended up duplicating my entire iTunes library in. Therefore, my priority then became to delete all the duplicates so I could go back to working on my original plan. I was able to delete about 600 duplicates before we had to leave, but no new play list got created. The good news was my recently added tracks were updated, so I ended up using that on my run.

I scrambled to get ready to go so we would not be late. In the process I saw H had out our shot blocks on the counter. I figured he had them out to bring them along. Turns out he just had them out to eat some before we left. We had gotten in the car about five minutes from our house when I asked H if he had the shot blocks. We had to turn around and go back home to get them. I prefer to fuel during my run rather than before (on these longer runs at least). I wasn't about to attempt my first nine miler in a month with out fuel on hand.

We arrived at the trail and meet our friend. We all stretched out and walked our way to the closest mile marker. The boys had decided they wanted to stay with me for at least the first half of our run. I started off and the boys paced behind me. We chatted our way through the first two and half miles going at a comfortable pace.

After the two and a half miles we all either ran out of things to talk about or the cardio work was just taking effect. Either way we all stopped talking and I put in my other headphone ear bud, and continued running along. At about four miles is where I started to feel the effects of the repetitive movement in my joints. That is nothing new so I just kept on going.

At four and a half miles (or the three mile marker, we started at the seven and a half mile marker) is where we turned around. It was also where opened up my shot blocks and ate three of them. I munched them down and drank some water with out slowing my pace at all. At this point the boys decided they wanted to speed up a little bit, so off they went and I was left to my own. They picked up their pace about 30 seconds per mile faster than me, so they were almost always in eye site. My fuel was starting to take effect and I felt great.

At mile six and a half is when my muscles started to get tired. I could feel my quads and hamstrings start to ache a little. This is usually the point where I need to start paying attention to my pace. It is too easy to slow down and make it more comfortable (although I have to say I was pretty comfy the whole time). I also try to concentrate on different muscle groups to keep up my pace.

Mile eight is when my awareness shut off. A lot of runners might notice this. The motion just became automatic and I was numb to my surroundings. At this point I knew the last mile would be a piece of cake. I speed up my pace to match or better what the boys were doing so I could finish not too far off them.

A quick 9:50 later I was finished! The entire run felt really good. I did not have any mental struggles keeping it from being fun. I could have easily gone at least two more miles if I wanted to. It was a confidence making me feel really good. I stretched out and it was time for our reward. The three of us went out for delicious warm meal from Teddy's. I got a veggie burger, sweet potato fries, and even opted for the chocolate shake too. It was so good and my favorite reward for a long run, besides the long hot shower I took once we got home.