Pounding on the Pavement

I finally got in a long training run on pavement in prep for Boston.  I hadn't originally planned on doing this on a weeknight, but I'm racing my next couple weekends so that complicates things, and DC had a big bout of snow and slushy weather coming into town today that would make doing a long training run less than fun.  I was also a bit tired from a surprisingly good weekend of miles while out of town in Austin, TX (to be recapped shortly).

Not to complain, but weeknights can make for a tough long run.  You are most likely tired, you worked all day, might not have gotten to eat the way you wanted, have to deal with darkness, and more than likely no one else is doing a long run so finding company is challenging.  Al these factors are not ideal.  I prefer to do my longest long runs on the weekends, preferably Saturday Mornings but as is typical with marathon training you need to re-adjust along the way to work within your constraints.

So I headed out last night for a long run at 5:40pm.  This was a daunting task so I broke it up into smaller segments - a good strategy for long training runs.  First, run to the track and run a mile on the track, that gets me 2 miles, then do one of my go-to loops in Arlington for 7.5 more miles.  At this point I will arrive at the Potomac River Running store for a group fun run, to get a drink and eat a Gu (well, HammerGel packets in "Montana Huckleberry" flavor to be exact) at 7pm.  Opting for the longer option I did 6.5 (very hilly...) miles with my group.  2+7.5+6.5 = 16.  After returning to the store I could have another Gu and a drink of water.  Then run the long way to get home for a little over 2 additional miles and voila! Long Run Done!

Good use of my Garmin.  I still
swear by my Forerunner 305.
The larger size never bothers me
and has plenty of space for a
4 square dashboard.  Battery
life is great too - I've never had
it die, even on over 5 hours
of use.

This was the plan, and it went mostly accordingly.  There were some tough miles in there.  It got dark around 5 miles in, so having to run solo in the dark when you are know you aren't even close to being done can be tough.  Miles 14ish -16 were tough too, getting tired at this point and a lot of uphill running.  The final stretch was mostly flat and I had a nice adrenaline boost provided by the thought of food, chocolate milk, and having a beer or 2 while watching the Washington Capitals NHL game that night.  Seeing the Caps come back from a 0-3 deficit to beat the Boston Bruins in overtime was the icing on the cake.

Pretty perfect pacing.  This was
taking into account a lot of stops
and turn-a-rounds, so the actual
pacing while running was closer to
around 7:45 min/miles.  The map was
a mess and really not worth sharing!

Although doing your long runs on trails will still get you in cardiovascular shape, its important to test your legs with long runs on pavement to simulate the stresses of marathon race day.  I would like to get one more 16-18 mile long run on pavement in, as well as 2 more long trail runs of 3.5 hours or more.  Another option I like to exercise is a combo (or hybrid) run - 12-14 on roads followed by 14-16 on trails.  The shorter option of one of these is great for marathon training, the longer routes are well suited for ultra training.