Marine Corp Marathon 16 mile Training Run
I was supposed to go out for a 17 mile training run today but due to the heat and the humidity I did cut it short by 1 mile. I was hoping to go on this run when I was on vacation; but I was enjoying too much of my vacation time and it was still very hot and humid in New Hampshire with now break in the weather forecast. So I decided that I would save the run for Sunday when I am back at home and am familiar with my roads.
I set my alarm for 7:00 a.m. At first I was thinking 6:30 but decided I wanted a little more sleep. By the time I had my tea and oatmeal, mapped out my route on my Garmin Connect, loaded up my iPod with all of my favorite podcasts, and got all of my gear together it was 8:30 when I was on the road. My intent was to walk at first to adapt to the heat. I did that for the first half mile and then started my 30/30 intervals. I was feeling good, the air temp was comfortable and there was a little breeze with overcast skies.
I stayed on a shady road for the first 2 miles and they went by quickly. Then instead of what I was considering for my route changed while on the road. I decided to go a different way because I didn’t want to hit many of the very high hills that are on the return trip home. I wanted to survive this run with confidence under my belt. It’s just much harder running in the summer.
I did see several nice sights out on my run today. The silly cow standing in the swampy pond, turkeys in my neighbor’s yard, the beautiful vineyard, horses, a woodchuck, and a unique coke bottle with the word “Explorer” on it.
I felt good through the first 8 miles, then I was starting to do the marathon math and was getting confused. When I hit 10 miles I was happy that I had just 7 left; but I was also close to home and decided that I would get some pretzels and fill my water bottles with ice. I was starting to feel the effects of the heat. I needed to get ahead of any heat exhaustion so that I could get the rest of my 6 miles done. I went back out and did my usual 4 mile route and saw my neighbor up the street whom I had seen 3 hours earlier. He was surprised I was still at it.
While on the last 5 miles I was starting to feel light headed. The ice in my water bottles melted already and the roads had less and less shade on them. The sun was starting to burn off the cloud cover so I didn’t have much respite from the heat. I poured some of the water over my head to help cool me down; but I was feeling pretty sure that I wasn’t going to be able to get the full 17 miles done. I would do the best I could to get 15 for sure. I was able to pick up some running again around mile 14 and did my 30/30 intervals closer to home and once I got to my driveway I walked the remaining distance to get me up to 16 miles.
While this wasn’t a fast training run, it was a successful training run. I didn’t get a heat headache and my legs don’t feel too bad. I did have to end up to walk some more than I had wanted; but the goal is to get the mileage under my belt and not worry about the speed.
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