May have been a bit foolish to attempt this today. The HAT Run 50K is less than a week away and my legs were already on the heavy side from a couple of brisk ten milers in the last couple of days, but you know me, I thought I’d give it a go anyway.
The first mile was my usual just-get-warmed-up kind of mile. By mile two I still wasn’t feeling it and as I turned onto Kingfisher Trail just past the three mile mark, I uncharacteristically contemplated slowing down to a walk. Instead I popped a Hammer Perpetuem Solid and made a deal with myself to cut the run short at ten miles.
Kingfisher soon turned into White Hill Lake and about 1.4 miles later I was turning left onto Cape Henry and heading back to the car, not especially pleased at bailing on the twenty miler, but realizing it was probably the right decision on the day. At some point just before the Trail Center however, my legs started to come back, and the whole mood of the run changed. Just after my Garmin beeped 10.5 miles, I arrived back at my car, munched on a delicious Hammer Bar and stretched out my aching muscles.
Not sure why, but instead of jumping in my MINI and heading home, I started running back towards the trail. My thoughts had turned away from the HAT Run next week and towards the Boston Marathon in just over 5 weeks. Rightly or wrongly, I decided I really needed this long run today after all.
I slogged through the next 6 or 7 miles, stopped once or twice to stretch things and arrived back at my starting point with 17 miles on the Garmin. A couple of “bridge loops” later and I was done; 20 miles in 2:24:12. Definitely not my speediest long run ever, but possibly one of my gutsiest.
Ah, so you’re human after all! Way to get it done – you’ll be glad while you’re hiking up the Newton Hills in a few weeks.
That’s a pretty impressive run in my book. Way to gut it out.