Aug 26, 2009

Wisconsin Dells

We went to Wisconsin Dells with some family friends for the last few days. It was a lot of fun but after three days of swimming, sliding, tubing, putt-putting and lazer tagging, I've had enough. I needed to get back home just so I could rest (and run). Before we went on Sunday I did dutifully get up at 5 AM so I could get my weekly long run in.

I ran 19 miles on a 3 x 6.33 mile loop. The loop swings by our house a few times so I could continue to experiment with Powerade but it does include a few good sized hills. I was really starting to sag on miles 11-12 and figured I might be cutting the loop short for the last lap. Fortunately I seemed to revive a bit around mile 14 and was able to finish it off. As for the Powerade, I took a swig when I ran by home at mile 6.33 and 12.66 then shortly after that my stomach felt mildly uncomfortable. Nothing bad, I just hope I get used to it a little more so it doesn't bother me at all. Probably I'm just imagining it. Maybe that's what I'll tell myself and see if that works.

As for today I'm entering my last couple of speed workouts before I hit the MP phase of my build up. I didn't really know what to do but somehow ended up with 24 x 200m in my head. Fine, I'll do that. Not sure of what pace to do I figured I go with 40-45 seconds and adjust from there. It seemed okay but for the first dozen or so I was dreading having to do 24 of these things so much that I didn't realize that they weren't so hard. By 16 I started to realize that my heart rate was probably not getting up as high as it should. In the middle of the 20th one I decided I'd do the last 4 under 40 seconds. Couldn't pull it off for the first but the next three were 39, 39 and 38 and my HR was definitely high enough. I should have been at that pace a little more often I think. Postrun I checked the McMillan calculator and it says 38-43 so I was actually in the zone except for a couple that might have been 44. Of course it wasn't totally exact since the middle school track where I was running didn't have any markings that a high school track would so I had to eyeball my position between the curve and straightaway. You know what is incredible? World record marathon pace for 200m is 35 seconds! I could definitely run that fast and put in a few intervals at that pace but for a whole marathon? Incredible.

All in 19 miles at 9:02 pace and 8 miles at 8:20.

3 comments:

Beth said...

Sounds like you had a great time in the Dells. Even better that you came home and finished your 19 mile run. I used Powerade to train for my last marathon and it took a little while to get used to. Good luck with that!

Lindsay said...

i'm jealous of your solid runs! i've been struggling this week - don't know what it is. :-/

nice job on the long run and the intervals. 24, yikes. i think i would've had a major mental barrier to break there! are you experimenting with powerade because that's what MCM is serving? if it's causing trouble you could try something else? but i can understand not wanting to haul your own bottle with you during the race.

AZ said...

Yes, I'm using the same powerade that they are serving at MCM. Usually I wouldn't drink sports drink and just survive on gels that I would carry but their water stops are at odd intervals so I'm thinking I might drink a bit of the powerade to help fuel me.