Friday morning brought my last 20 miler to the table. It also brought a target pace of 9:30, which seemed impossible, and temperatures of 34 - 37 degrees at 5:30 a.m. I was a little nervous about trying to hold a 9:30 pace for 20 miles, since my previous 20 milers were all around 9:45. But I was also somewhat excited to be at this point in my training program, so it wasn't difficult to get motivated for this run. I didn't take my preparation lightly when the alarm went off. I got on up, checked the weather forecast online, ate a Zone Bar with some Gatorade, and took my time to make sure I had everything I needed. One thing I didn't have were my Gu packets that J.T. had picked up for me at the bike shop the day before. So I had to find his keys and go outside to unlock his truck and bring them back in. After I did this, I headed to my bedroom to get my fuel belt out and put them in it. I keep my fuel belt in a drawer in my dresser, and being that I am not all that coherent at 5:30 a.m., for some reason I opened the drawer and dropped J.T.'s keys in and shut it back without ever realizing it. A few minutes later I thought "Hmmm...I never got my fuel belt out." So I went and got the fuel belt and finally got started on the run. Note: It never occured to me that J.T.'s keys were still in my dresser drawer.
I could tell after the first 10 steps that this was going to be a good run. Isn't that strange? From the start, I felt light on my feet was able to keep the pace down around 9:30/mile. I had on my UA Cold Gear tights, my UA Cold Gear Mock Turtleneck, a vest, UA gloves, and my Pearl Izumi ear warmer, but I still was a little cold for the first few miles. The sun coming up was beautiful, though, and I soon got warmer. I ran from my house to Interstate Dr and proceeded to do an out and back to the golf course on Hwy 55 (5 miles out and 5 miles back). At mile 8.5 I about got hit my school bus. The driver was waiting to pull out onto the highway from the same side of the road I was running on, and she was only looking for traffic coming from the opposite way. I slowed down to let her on out, but she kept hesitating, so I finally ran on along in front of her. And ofcourse about the same time she decided to pull out with no idea that I was in front of her. But I knew that this was the case, since she hadn't looked my way at all, so I kicked it into a sprint and got out of her way before she really got started anyways. I'm sure she was pissed at me, but I didn't really care. She could have
atleast looked my way
one time before pulling out. I mean, I was on the side walk after all - and there
could be people on the sidewalks even though it is 6:45 a.m. in Manchester.
So I got the golf course and ran the half mile loop around the subdivision. I saw John Leighton picking someone up to school and he texted me saying "You are a freak-it's like sub-zero out here." And I saw several other friends taking their kids to school. And shortly after, around mile 11, J.T. calls me.
"Lana, did you use my keys this morning?"
"Yes, I had to get my Gu from your truck."
"Well I couldn't find them. I finally just took the kids to school in your car. Do you know what you did with them?"
"Well, they are either on the kitchen counter, my dresser, the computer desk, or the bathroom sink." (Those were the only places I could think of where I might have sat them down.)
"Well, I looked at all those places and couldn't find them. I'm waiting on Matt to let me in the office now. Just call me when you get done."
"Okay, sorry."
He wasn't real happy about that, but there's not much I can do when I'm 9 miles away. It didn't affect my pace though, by now I'm keeping all miles under 9:20 with very little effort. I had forgotten my heart rate monitor, so I couldn't tell what my heart rate was, but I would say it below 160. When I got back Interstate Dr. I realized I was going to be fairly short on the mileage, so I kept running all the way into town, then took a left Hwy 41 to head home. I noticed at the "3 miles to home" point that I was at mile 16, so I knew I'd have to run past my house a ways to get the full 20 miles. I didn't like the idea of that, but at this point I didn't really want to try to figure out another way to get an extra mile. Mile 18 hurt, mile 19 hurt worse, and I pushed mile 20 just because I couldn't wait to be done. I think mile 20 ended up at like an 8:45 pace or something. My final time was 3 hours, 8 minutes and some change. Average pace was 9:25. YES!!! This was the best long run I've had yet by a long shot. And gives me a really good feeling going into the taper. I'll try to post the long run splits later, as I don't have my Garmin handy right now.
Back to the lost keys though, I couldn't find them when I got home either. J.T. got his extra set and was fine, though, and about 4 hours later it occurred to me that I had put something in my dresser drawer that morning instead of taking out my fuel belt. So I went to the drawer and there were the keys. haha