A friend of mine was telling me about how he was going to be doing a 23 mile training run. He is using the 4 Months To A 4 Hour Marathon book schedule that I suggested to him, and it has runs longer than 20 miles. Anyway, he run a 21 mile run last weekend, and was scheduled for a 10 mile run this weekend, and a 23 mile run next weekend. But he will be on vacation next weekend, so swapped the two runs. I recommended against doing a 21 and a 23 mile run on back to back weekends. But he said he felt fine. He told me his route which ended not too far from where I live. Hmmm. I was scheduled for a 20 mile run. So I told him I would meet him along his route.
He was leaving his house at 6:45am, and would be running at a 10:40 pace. I planned to meet him near the 3 mile mark at about 7:15. I had my wife drop me off, and sure enough, he showed up right on schedule. We took off running. 10:40 pace is slower than I am used to running these days. I warm up at 10:00 pace, and have run my recent marathons at aroun 8:00 minute/mile pace. So this was an easy run for me. I had to keep myself in check to keep from running too fast.
I needed to make a pit stop, so I stopped at a gas station and used their bathroom while my friend kept running. I did my business, washed my hands, and took off to catch my buddy. According to my Garmin I was running at a sub-7:00 pace, and even sub-6:00 pace. I caught him quickly.
Soon we were running on the canal path. Much of the canal path that we would be running was used for the Rochester Marathon, though we would be running in the opposite direction. But the first part that we ran, I had never been on before. It was interesting. We saw lots of wildlife including deer, rabbits, ducks, geese, birds, people walking their dogs, cyclists, runners, walkers, etc.
I had worn my lumbar pack loaded with acouple 16 oz water bottles. My buddy wore a fuel belt witha couple small bottles, and had hid a couple water bottles halfway into the route. He was sweating alot and look tired, but he kept going. Though I noticed we were very subtly slowing down. Around the 16 mile mark of his run, he was looking very tired. The last part of his run was at around 11-something pace, and we were taking walk breaks. I hung with him, trying to keep him going, but not to the point where he was going to hurt himself. I has told my wife to meet me at a park at the end of the route at about 10:45. But we didn’t arrive until after 11am. My buddy’s wife had even called him wondering where he was at. We were still over a mile from the finish at that point.
After the run, I met my wife, and we hit the Burger King drive-thru. I was starving! When I got home, I took a long nap.
It was a fun change from my usual runs on my treadmill. But I wouldn’t do it all the time. I can run at a faster consistant pace on my TM, and watch TV, and take restroom breaks when I want, etc. Running outside is just no replacement for running on a treadmill!

Posted by Rob in Whatever on April 15th, 2008 |