That was miserable

What a difference two weeks makes - and not a good difference! Two weeks ago I managed to crank out my 12 mile long run at 7:11 pace and while it was certainly hard, it wasn't bad. Today was a different story....

I was actually fairly excited for today's run - it was predicted to be in the 20s and I think my cough is moderately better. However, a couple of things quickly put a bit of a damper on the enthusiasm: I got off to a bit of a late start (3:45 instead of 3:00) and we got about 4" of snow overnight. While the snow was pretty well cleared, there was a constant layer of gray mashed-up snow underfoot that builds up on the shoes and feels a bit like running on a beach. Despite this, the run got off to a good start: I was moving comfortably around 7:15, and my temperature was pretty good. Running with the new fuel belt was a bit odd, but it is really stable which is good.

The run took a pretty sharp turn downhill right around mile seven: I came around a corner and was into a 12 - 15mph head wind for the rest of the run. While I can deal with pushing through the wind, I wasn't dressed quite right for the single-digit windchills; my face was pretty cold and I was worried about my knees getting chilled. Around this time I also began having a decent amount of my pain in my left calf for unknown reasons (maybe the lower stability on the snow?). I also have this problem where my left foot clips my right ankle bone about once a mile. Normally this hurts but isn't a big deal, but on a run of this length things got rubbed raw pretty quickly. Cold and bloody. Not fun.

I pushed through the run and ended up finishing with an average pace of 7:29 - not bad, but well off the 7:11 from two weeks ago. I think the biggest problems were the wind on the second half (I averaged 7:16 for the first 7 miles and 7:41 for the last 7), and the snow on the ground as I didn't have great traction.

As far as the Fuel Belt experiment went, I used one gel, and drank about six ounces of water and four of Gatorade, which isn't nearly enough. Although I know that I need to eat and drink, I don't like slowing down to do it, and today I actually had problems with the bottles icing up. Interestingly, Gatorade freezes much more readily than water does! No real intestinal problems, although things didn't feel great down there either. I'll keep working at it.

Although I'm not too happy with the run, at least I got all of it in. Assuming that my calf is OK, it's great to have that extra base, and to have some things to focus on for next time!