Ten Mile Trail Run at Tribble Mill Park

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I usually like to get my long runs in around the house.  I know there are many other better places to run, and some very nice trails within just a short drive, but when it comes to a long run I like to run from home because I know it is already going to take me 90 minutes or longer to complete the run, and I don't want to add the drive time on top of that.

Since I really don't like to travel for my long runs, I wasn't too excited when my daughter Payton told me right before church on Sunday that she and her friend were going to go to Tribble Mill Park in Grayson to do their long run.  Whenever she tells me this, I know that this means I am going to make a trip to the park.  Since I had a long run scheduled that day already, I knew it would be crazy for me to not take advantage of being at the park to get the long run in.  When I asked her, she told me that they were planning on running 10 miles, so this put pretty much anything over 10 miles out of the question for me.  I don't mind asking them to wait five or ten minutes, but anything more than that I won't make them wait alone for me.

A Cold Ten Miler, The First Since The Marathon

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It has been a less than stellar six weeks of training since the marathon.  I started back just as I wanted to the week following the marathon, even though the coming week was Thanksgiving week and we were out of town.  It was at the tail end of that week that I hurt my back from too much driving and trying to run with a sorta hurting back.  That run felt good, but my back did not for over a week after that.

The setback of being hurt so soon after the marathon, and the holidays being upon us sent me down the same path I went last year following my first marathon.  I have had some decent running, but have not run too many days in a row before this week because I didn't want to run the risk of re-injury.  The fear of re-injury has also kept my long runs somewhat.... how should I say it..... short.

Have you ever got lost on a run?

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I can't say that I have ever got lost on a run before, at least not to this extent.  When I stepped foot out of bed this morning I didn't realize what was awaiting me.  Would I still have gotten out of bed and gone for this same run?  Sure.  Would I have changed a few things about it?  Yup!

This morning was going to be a little bit different than most morning runs for me.  I dropped my daughter Payton off at school for Cross Country practice this morning at 5:40 and just headed to work to run there since I needed to get 10 miles in and didn't want to break the run into two 5 mile runs like I did last week.

First long run of Marathon Training

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This past Sunday marked the innaguaral long run of my marathon training for the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon.  I am embarrased to say that this was only my second 10 mile run since the 2009 Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon Last November. Following the race last year I cut my miles way back and just have not been able to get my long runs back to where they were even pre-marathon training last year.

Last year before starting Marathon Training using Hal Higdon's Intermediate II Marathon Training Guide for the 2009 Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon (My first 26.2) I was regularly running long runs up to 13 miles. This year I have built my shorter runs and started running 6 days a week (much more than I was running last year at this time) but my long runs have not been over 7.5 miles more than a few times.

Went out for a 10 miler...... then quit

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I had the day off today and really wanted/needed to sleep in because of what the weekend has planned for me. For this reason I decided to put my 10 mile run off till early afternoon.

This gave me the opportunity to get up when I was good and ready and have a nice breakfast with my wife and kids (they are off school today as well) Payton, my daughter that runs Cross Country, was leaving at 1:00 to head to an out of state meet tomorrow so I figured I would eat lunch and then take her to the school before my run. This would give my body a chance to digest the food and I would be ready to run when I got back home.

This is when things started to go wrong. I got back home and ready to run about 2:00. I had been hydrating all morning so I knew I would be well hydrated for my run, but I only had one bottle of Gatorade left and needed to save that for Sunday's 20+ miler.

The temperature wasn't too bad at 81 degrees, and the humidity wasn't too bad at 72%, but the part that concerned me was the sun. The sun was out in full force, and I don't do well running in the direct sun for too long. The last time I cut a longer run short was because of the sun. I train almost 100% of the time in the early morning with an occasional evening run, but almost never in the middle of the day when the sun is so hot.

The run started off pretty good and I eased into it with a slower first mile like I always do. I had taken two bottles of water with me because I knew the sun would be taking it all out of me. I started to sip at the water about 1.5 miles and things were still going pretty good. At about 3 miles I was getting close to the end of my first bottle of water trying to fend off how badly I was starting to feel. I was starting to feel pretty lousy. I knew it wasn't a hydration issue but was really starting to wonder about the lack of electrolytes and the hot sun.

My legs were getting heavier with each step and I was nearing the longest/biggest hill of my run. I was also running on the busiest road I run on, and it doesn't have a sidewalk so I am running right on the white line. The sweat was pouring into my eyes and it was stinging and making me dizzy. I knew this wasn't a good combination with how close I was running to the traffic so I decided I needed to get over on the grass. The grass is very uneven and I was worried about twisting an ankle so I decided to walk for a little bit.

Walking for even that little bit did me in. I was not able to get myself going again. By the time I reached the top of the hill, try as I might, I couldn't get myself running for more than a couple hundred yards at a time. My legs felt weaker than they have in months of training.... including all my long runs up to 20 miles.

I decided to cut out a 2 mile loop and attack the 4 miles I had left to get home. I ended up run/walking the rest of the way home feeling completely defeated. It has been a long time since I have had to cut a run short or walk this much during a run.

Link to my running log to see the way my run went in numbers.

What do you do to keep for falling into the same trap I did?

Tim Wilson - blog.262quest.com - subscribe - follow - virtual4now

10 Mile Humidity Test

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Lawrenceville, GA - As the sun came up over the horizon, Tim Wilson was still sound asleep, resting comfortably in the air conditioning after a good nights rest. He knew the rest wouldn't last long as he started to stir around 7:20 realizing his long run was beckoning. He knew what the weatherman had said just a short 9 hours later. OK, he didn't remember everything he said, but he did remember the words humidity and high being used in the same sentence.

OK, enough of the third party writing. It sounded like a cool idea, but just isn't as easy and doesn't flow as well.

It was really humid this morning. I knew about it the night before, but knew I still needed to get my long run in. I took off this morning at about 7:45 with the humidity proudly sitting at 96%. I am just glad the temperatures were not too high at 64 degrees. I was starting to drip before I rounded the corner at the 1/4 mile mark. By the time the run was done the temp had raised to 74 degrees but the humidity had dropped to 84%.

I started the run this morning with the music off. I wanted to just enjoy the ambiance around me this morning. I turned on the radio after a couple miles when I hit the busier road to drown out the cars.

As I was running my 3rd mile I had a rare occasion to see a deer bounce across the road in front of me. Since the area I live in is so loaded with subdivisions we don't have a lot of deer. We do occasionally see deer in our back yard and in our woods behind our house but these woods too are locked in by homes. It was just a really cool addition to the morning. The funny thing is when I turned around and headed back I saw another (or maybe the same one) cross the road in the same place - going the same way... very cool.

My run went really good with a average pace of 8:50 which is just 5 seconds slower than my Half Marathon Race Pace back in February. Looking forward to start building the miles back up now that work is starting to show some relief.

Humidity test results: Pass

Running Log Link to show my splits

Shorter than normal

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I have had a shorter mileage week than normal. The extra work hours over the last couple weeks once again caught up with me and I just couldn't drag myself out of bed in the middle of the night to go running.

I only put a couple 4 milers in during the week, but with excellent negative splits. Run 1 Run 2.

I did however put in a 10 miler today which I was really pleased with overall. My pace was 9:09 which is just a small bit slower than my half marathon pace.

I am looking forward to getting back at it this coming week.

10 on the 10th

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From dark to dawn.... I usually start my run off in the dark and end my run in the dark, but today was different. I actually was able to start my run in the dark and run the morning light in. By the time I got home it was completely light, but still early enough that the sun had not come up to start warming it up.

My kids are out of school this week for spring break and since we didn't go anywhere I still worked. I did decide, however to take today and Friday off so I could spend some time with them. But, as it goes with younger teenagers, both of my daughters spent the night with friends last night. We did tell them that they needed to be home this morning because I didn't take the day off to spend by myself. :)

I had in my head that I would still get up at the same time and go running and then do a little work on my project at work. When the alarm went off at 4:30, and I knew I was not held to a schedule this morning it was all to easy to turn it off and give myself a bit more sleep. I ended up rolling myself out of bed at 5:30 and hit the road at 5:45. I had planned on doing 8 miles this morning but started to try to convince myself to only go 4 miles. The intelligent part, instead of the lazy part of me won out, and through a conversation in my head I told myself.... You are not on a schedule, why do you think you can't do the 8 miles? - So, I did 10 miles instead!

This was the first time I had run 10 miles since the Half Marathon, so I wasn't sure how I would feel in the last couple miles, but I felt really good and was pleased to see that I still have the half marathon distance fully in me. I have been really busy at work lately and been bringing a lot of work home so my distances have not been where they were pre-race, but I think it is now time that I start looking for and committing to which Marathon I will be running. I have put 20 miles in so far this week so the miles are starting to come back, but without a goal race I find it too easy to not put the miles in. That being said.... I am relying on my readers to hold my feet to the flame and ask me which marathon I will be doing..... constantly.... asking all the time.... annoying me.... until.... I.... commit.