Saturday, March 10, 2007

Sinai Marathon

Sat AM- 26.4 miles- 3:39:17- includes 10:30 of pit stops

Well after taking Thursday off Friday's run felt like crap. Sometimes the time off makes everything feel worse. Then today I got up at 6:45, ate a bar, drank some coke and slowly got around. By 7:30 I was placing my grocery bag aid station (water, Gatorade, 5 gels, and body glide) down behind the outdoor stage/stadium thingy in the shade. I began churning out 17:00-17:45 minute 2.2mile loops feeling sore in my calves and generally tired. Things got better after 30 minutes but by the 7th lap I seriously debated about aborting the long run effort. But, since I only go down to the south base every two weeks and enjoy its scenery, hills and softer surface so much I told myself to just do another lap and by then I was over the bad patch and continued to grind away. I stopped for 1:30-2:30 every 2nd lap (5 times total) to hit a gel and drink.

Considering last March I ran the Bataan Death March marathon in 3:47 and in April ran 3:34 at the Charlottesville marathon, and 3:28 at the Frederick marathon. Today's solo run up and down the 36 hills in the Sinai desert was a pretty good one.

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