After last week’s pull-back week, this is where shit gets real. The Tuesday and Thursday runs are much longer, as is Friday’s run.
Monday was my normal day- form drills, 4 miles, and 7 strides. I kept it mostly in the park, running through Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove and Smale Park out west, around the perimeter of the Bengals practice field, and back through all the parks into Friendship Park. The weather was cold – 29F or so. 5.1 miles in 43:29.
Tuesday was a huge increase over the past several weeks- 8 miles. Weather was nicer – 41F and within the first 2 miles the sun was out. This is obviously the last week before Daylight Savings Time begins and the RunLites continue being one of the more important accessories I own. I ran out through Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove and Smale Park again, and continued like I was going around the Bengals practice field except I continued down West Pete Rose Way to Mehring, back Mehring past the practice field and around Paul Brown Stadium to Freedom Way and to the Suspension Bridge where I crossed into Covington. I used some side streets to get to the 4th Street Bridge and crossed into Newport where I ran on the floodwall to the Newport Levee and up a ramp to Newport On The Levee and to the Purple People Bridge, which I used to cross back into Cincinnati and I finished the last of the final mile in Yeatman’s Cove. 8 miles in 1:09:38.
Wednesday was a normal day – form drills, 4 miles, and 7 strides. It was cold and a little windy. Since I decided I wasn’t going on any really-hilly routes on Thursday or Friday and since it was on my mind from #bibChat the evening before, I decided to run up Gilbert, through Eden Park, and back down and into Sawyer Point, where my watch screwed up as it was attempting to save the run. 5 miles in 43:06.
Thursday was an 8 mile M pace run (which means 9.5 total – 1 mile warm up, 8 miles at M pace, and 0.5 mile cool down). This was a cold day with a lot of wind and some snow and my hydration belt digging into my side. I generally stay in the parks (Friendship, Sawyer Point, Yeatman’s Cove, and Smale parks) and in the area west of the park on Mehring and West Pete Rose Way, and this was no different – did a loop down into Friendship Park and ran all the way through to the “triangle” and ran it twice before going all the way back to Friendship park and back through Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove and back to my normal stopping area. 9.5 miles in 1:19:39, M pace portion in 1:06:29 for a pace of 8:19 min/mi.
Friday was the long run. After the 15 mile run, which was a debacle, I decided I’d do a few things differently. For starters, Thursday night, I had a big bowl of spaghetti for dinner – carbo loading! Also, I prepared a bottle of Gatorade Endurance to go with me. I took three Gus and the Gatorade and decided to run across the bridges. Across Purple people, down the floodwall and down to the east-of-the-levee area and around the parking lot and back through the Newport Levee to the west floodwall, where I ran up the handicap ramp and across the 4th Street Bridge into Covington, where I went down to the river and across onto the new path until I saw wet mud in my way. I turned around, pulled out a pack of Gu and consumed it while running back up to the surface streets and to the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge to cross into Cincinnati. From there, I ran around Paul Brown Stadium and onto West Pete Rose Way where I was going to do the triangle, but I decided to head north to Linn and Dalton and across the 8th Street Viaduct and back down to the tip of the triangle to proceed down Mehring, taking my second Gu on the way down. From there, I headed back up Plum to Freedom Way and down to the Suspension Bridge to cross back into Covington. Once back into Covington I promptly left it for Newport by way of the 4th Street Bridge where I continued down to the new road to get to the Taylor Southgate Bridge. From there I went around US Bank Arena to get back to Smale Park and ran back down to the Triangle. I shortened it by going along the Bengals Practice Field and returned back through Smale Park into Yeatman’s Cove and through Sawyer Point to go around the Boathouse to finish off 17 miles in Sawyer Point. 2:29:20 for an 8:47 pace. WOW. I didn’t (and still don’t, after a few hours) feel as bad as the 15 mile run, and this was 4 minutes longer (but 2 miles longer!). There was one mile that was oddly fast (around US Bank Arena), and the GPS track is off, so the average pace is probably a little higher in reality, but I’m more concentrated on how I felt post-run.
For the week, I’m just under 45 miles with a whopping 6.25 hours spent running. I think this week was supposed to break me down. In some philological ways, it probably did. However it did the opposite psychologically. Hopefully I can walk down stairs tomorrow!
Cheers!