GOING SOLO

I had a 20 miler scheduled for today. Even with walking the dog, eating a light breakfast and drinking some coffee, I was able to hit the roads by 7:45. While I was walking the dog, my left arch was hurting. I figured I’d start the run and if it bothered me, I’d cut it short and go long next weekend. Maybe it was just a cramp because it didn’t bother me during the run.

I decided to head to my favorite trails and just wander around. I spent just over 2 hours on the trails and only saw 8 people (6 walkers and 2 runners). With about 30 minutes left I decided to head to the track just to see what pace I was running. I figured I was running between 8-8:15 pace. Mainly I wanted to make sure I wasn’t running like 8:30 pace. 4 laps later my watch showed 8:12. I used that mile to determine how long I needed to run to get 20 miles – 2:45. So I stayed on the track for another half mile before heading home and running for 2:44 – close enough.

This was actually my first solo long run in awhile, so I tried to keep moving as much as possible. When I do long runs with my team there always seems to be some standing around and waiting. Not a big deal, but I thought I’d make sure I could go long without the breaks.

Oh yea, I passed a RV park as I was leaving the trails too. If you owned a RV, why would you go “camping” in a suburb? Seems silly to me.