18 miler Done

This morning I slugged through and got my first 18 mile run done. I started at 6:20am and ran a little over 2 miles with Jane, one of the girls from our running club. She had 15 scheduled so we really wanted to start as early as possible. The regular Saturday morning group was starting at 7:00. The humidity was terrible at our start time. It was like 96% and even though it was only maybe 71 degrees, we were soaking wet after two miles. This was going to be a tough day i thought.

The Saturday morning runs are fun as usually there are anywhere from 10-20 runners. Usually in this is about three or four different pace groups and not everyone doing the same distances. Today the majority of the group was running what we call the 10.3 mile Tour de Cabot. Basically starting at South Side Elementary and ending there making a loop through town. After the start, the groups started splitting up based on pace and Jane, David S. and I ran together. We actually had a really good run back to the school even though it was hot and humid. The humidity and heat kept us running a somewhat slower pace than usual but that was ok. This was one of those days to back off a little. We would run 1 mile and then walk probably less than a minute and start back. Lucky for us there is a store just a little over half way where we can refill our water bottles. We had run out about a mile from the store.

After making it back to the school, I still had almost 6 miles to run and Jane had a little over 2. There was at least one running 20 today, maybe two. After refueling at the school with water and gels, we were off to finish. The faster group had already went ahead, some had gone home.
Jane and I split off about half a mile from the school so she could take a shorter route. I went on down and turned on New Country Rd. By this time I was at about mile 14+ so I started to slow down and take more walk breaks. A little ways up New Country I heard a couple dogs and looked and here comes this big black Chow right for me. I started yelling "NO", "STAY" about the time I felt his breath on my leg. Lucky for me "STAY" was the right word and his owner came out about that time. Note to self......never run on this road again!

After that the rest of my run sucked. New Country had a couple decent sized hills to go over. The heat started wearing me down so I'd walk a little then run. Somehow I managed to walk/run back to the school. It really wasn't that slow but I knew it was slower than the first 14 miles. When I got back to the school I needed about a mile or less to get 18. I ran around the small track there a couple times and then the parking lot. It was very hot by this time and I was ready to be done. Finally my garmin sounded and I was done. No extra miles today, I was ready to go cool off. It was a hard run, and I honestly thought that today might be the day that I hit the wall but I didn't. Hopefully I won't have to experience that.

I finished the run in 03:34:09 for 18.01 miles and an average pace of 11:53. Up to mile 16 I was staying around 11:25 or better. Here are the splits and most were pretty consistent except when we stopped to get water.
Mile
1- 10:36
2- 11:03
3- 10:04
4- 11:08
5- 11:01
6- 11:23
7- 11:31
8- 11:34
9- 13:56 (water stop)
10- 11:29
11- 11:47
12- 11:31
13-13:23 (water stop/school)
14-11:10
15- 12:51
16- 13:06
17-12:50
18- 13:13
3084 Cals
Avg HR 163