Long run day, not fun day

Friday was my long run day.  I had been watching the weather and it looked really iffy.  It changed back and forth from rain to freezing rain.  But when I got up Friday morning and walked to the bus stop at 7am, it looked really nice out.  Not too cold (34ish I think), and calm as calm can be (I hate wind!!).  So by 8am I decided I was going to hit the trail for my 14 mile long run.

I was looking forward to my long run outside because my iPod Shuffle was loaded with a bunch of new podcasts… my go-to for long runs.  As soon as I hooked it up, it played 3 seconds of a song and turned off.  Wha???  I didn’t know if it was broken, or just not charged.  Luckily I plugged it into my car and that jump started it so it would play again.  But it was on music, and I was afraid to touch it again, so I went with that.

The weather at the trail was nice, and since the forecast said there was a 90% chance of rain around 10 or 11 am, I figured the trees would shelter me if that actually happened.  I had to stop early on to take this picture because it was really quite beautiful along the river.  Can you see the white birds flying along the water?  There were a ton of them!

By the time I had got to 2.5 miles I passed a park shelter.  I noticed there were spots on the concrete.  What, it’s raining?  I didn’t feel it, but clearly there had been some precipitation recently.  I traveled into the woods farther and started to feel the rain coming down.  I was staring up at the sky when I heard a noise by my side.  In a quick glance I saw it was a deer running away!  Oh man, I almost missed a deer because I was staring at the sky in disbelief?  That’s a first.

The run was going OK, but I was losing steam.  I was trying to make it an easy run, but i was really starting to struggle.  At mile 6 I took a GU in hopes of some energy.  I also decided to switch over to a podcast, and was happy that worked.

By mile 8 my energy had left.  I gotta say, at this point the run, I was struggling big time.  If there was a shuttle bus to return tired runners from out there, I would have hopped right on.  But no luck, I still had 6 miles to run back to my car.  Ugh.  And, after my first podcast stopped playing, my iPod turned off again.  With a bit more fiddling I got it to work.

By mile 10 I was down to a run run run walk strategy.  I really didn’t want to, but my brain had convinced the rest of my body that it was necessary, so that’s what happened 🙁  My hip was only slightly bothering me, but I just felt like I didn’t have any endurance to keep going.  The trail was also getting a bit muddy now and I had to avoid puddles so I didn’t slip in the mud.  I stepped in a few of them and had wet feet.  I don’t know how I made it through Boston 2015.  It was so rainy and cold!!

Things I have learned on this run: put more faith in the weather forecast, and my new running top is not water repellent in any manner.  In fact, I think it acted more like a sponge, and I was pretty darn cold by the time I finished.  My gloves were soaked too.

Run done!!  In review of it, the overall pace was not bad for a long easy run, but the execution of it was horrible.

Today’s splits:  best mile 8:59, avg 9:35, slowest mile: 10:20 (and that wasn’t a cool down, I was just exhausted!!)

I’m hoping this run will be the worst of this training cycle so there is no where left to go but up!! 🙂  And what’s up with my hair?  It looked like a squirrel on the back of my head.

You’ve got to have those bad runs to make you appreciate all of the good ones.  Hopefully next week will be better!

*******************************************************

Q:  Do you have a jacket that works well in the rain/wet snow?  Do share – I need one!

Q:  Had any bad runs lately?  Do you think there was a specific reason it was?

Q:  Do you listen to podcasts on long runs?