So once again, D and I had our 12 miler on tap. Back to Silver Comet Trail for 12 mile run. This is the only place we have ever run the 12 miler, so why change up?
We started off at 845. I felt a little off and I couldn't find my rhythm the first mile. I finally settled in at Mile 2 and felt more comfortable. I felt I was going faster by the time I got to Mile 3. I couldn't tell, really but I felt strong still. At Mile 4.7 I saw D. I realized I had not thought about anything for quite some time. I also wondered if he rode in the car in a blue shirt. I was convinced he had on a red shirt. I know he said it wasn't comfortable, but I really didn't recall him changing. Call me Perceptive!
With that, I concluded Mile 5 is downhill. Which if you look at my below times, you would agree too. Still I never passed this dreaded section between Mile 5 and 6. Or did I? I don't know. I was looking down a lot and I never saw the big V's in the road that I normally see. So finally I hit Mile 6 and turned back around.
Again Perceptive. The V's were right there (they are notches in the path I guess to slow down bikers. I'm not really sure why they are there). I still looked down because I know this section is an incline and a curve, and it can be discouraging. It isn't anything massive, but it is just discouraging at that juncture of the race.
During Mile 8 I started having trouble. I wanted to stop. I really dug deep to keep going. At Mile 9, I wondered what the hell that was about. I realized I had less than a 5K and to keep going. This is where the wheels fell off. I was running fine, and all of the sudden I had a massive itch in my calf. Not a cramp but an itch. It itched so badly, I had to stop and scratch it. I mean nails in skin scratch. I finally got it to be a nag, so I started again. By then, I lost my rhythm. I was paying to much attention to the time, so I told myself to run 2 songs and then I could look/walk a minute. This seemed to work, except now I just focuses on how sore my butt was. I kept going despite how slowly it was. Mile 11 ticked by. Mile 12, my butt was screaming. Not a bad pain. Just a "What the Hell are you doing to me?" pain. I walked 3 minutes and then decided to finish it up. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't great. But it was done.
D met me at Mile Marker 0 with Gatorade. It was glorious. We walked back to the car, ran some errands and then came home. I took a 3 hour nap and sat on the sofa the rest of the day.
12 Mile Comparison: 2010, 2011, and 2012
April2010 April2011 September2011 April 2012
Mile 1: 13:48 14:14 15:00 13:54
Mile 2: 14:19 14:19 14:32 13:40
Mile 3: 14:31 14:02 14:08 14:12
Mile 4: 14:36 13:35 14:07 14:07
Mile 5: 14:21 12:54 13:44 12:39
Mile 6: 15:28 14:22 14:02 13:43
Mile 7: 16:05 13:52 15:07 13:42
Mile 8: 15:17 13:59 14:15 13:36
Mile 9: 16:09 13:37 14:16 13:32
Mile 10: 16:17 13:20 14:02 14:42
Mile 11: 18:04 13:52 13:39 15:15
Mile 12: 18:03 14:05 13:55 16:07
Total: 3:07:03 (15:35/mi) 2:46:14 (13:51/mi) 2:50:55(14:14/mi) 2:49:10 (14:06/mi)
4 comments:
I know what the V's are all about. That part of the trail used to flood all the time and they had to put drainage pipes under the trail and they did it in a V pattern. I remember when there were no V's and they had to close it off to do the work. Congrats on your 12 miler!!
Great job on your 12 miler! I wish I could still go that far. Stupid knee...
Nice! It's really good to see year over year improvements. Good job!
You are positioning yourself for a monster performance.
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