Suffering Practice

I think I'm in trouble.

D and I hit the roads today for a 19-mile run. We'd come up with a loop that began and ended at the Bowdoin field house. I was planning on adding a loop around the fields to make it 20. Well, that didn't happen.

From the start I didn't feel quite right. I figured I would warm up as we went along, and I did. In fact, I felt fine for the first 1:20 or so. Then it starting getting warm, and the hills really started. The first 7 miles were fairly flat, just a few minor bumps, but once we hit Maquoit Bay it got hilly. I felt good at first, but then about 11 miles, I knew something was off. I kept pushing hoping I'd feel better. Never really did. I started laboring around 14 miles, but was able to push up another hill. At around 15 miles, we hit a flat section, and I couldn't stay with D. Nothing specific hurt, I just didn't have the juice. We turned onto Woodside Road, and I pushed up what I knew was the last significant hill. I started to feel a little better, but I knew I was working hard. Then with about 2 miles to go, it happened. If I was on a bike, I could practically hear Ligget and Sherwin.

Ligget: And the American has cracked.
Sherwin: He's absolutely popped! He's going to drop right off the back.
Ligget: There's nothing he can do now. It's all over.

That's really not what you want running through your head, but there it was. I was mad. I was slowing, almost stumbling, and I was mad. I tried to stay with D, and she urged me on. But there was no staying with her, so I told her to keep going. I watched her pull further away. There was absolutely nothing I could do. I was toast. Everything in my body was telling me to walk. I really wanted to. I didn't. I kept running..er, shuffling. Again, the overwhelming emotion was anger. What was going on? I just couldn't get the legs to move. I managed to keep the final mile under 10 minutes, but barely. I didn't really try to push it over these last two miles, as I just wanted to survive, but I really don't think I could have anyway. Oh, and did I mention I was mad. Really mad. I finally finished in 2:54:42. Works out to 9:11 per mile.

Here's the loop. (For some reason, the embedding for mapmyrun isn't working. I'd complain, but it's a free service after all.) As you can see, it was pretty hilly. So that's some consolation until I remember that so is the MDI Marathon course.

So despite D being all worried that she wasn't going to be ready for the marathon and me feeling like I was on the right track. I think we came out of this run feeling just the opposite. Today was not a good day for me. Granted, bad days happen, but I really didn't need a bad day for my ego. 19 miles is the furthest I've ever run, so that's kind of cool. Then again, I had planned to do 20, and I barely ran the last mile. Oh, and walking around the house this afternoon is less than routine. Not good times. It was certainly hotter out there than I would have like (Thermometer read 78 when we got home), but it might be the same temp during the marathon. Hopefully, it will be 58 and cloudy, but who knows? So, all in all, not what I was hoping for. Not at all. I still have a 22 and a 20 on the schedule, so hopefully they'll go better. But, if I'm struggling through 19, how about I supposed to run 7 more miles? Um, yeah, 7 more. crap