An Uphill End to 20 Miles

Saturday's 20 mile run was a little lonely. I had intended to run some early miles with Dave and anyone else from the Ethiopian Elites who was interested, but ended up missing them by about 5 minutes--my own fault, I was late. I decided that since I was there, I would go ahead and make good use of my time, so I started out on what ended up being a 7-mile modified Route 66 route that took me up 15th, across through the Woodward Park area, and back to Veterans Park on the Midland Valley Trail. It was a nice route--just wish the weather had been a little nicer. I started getting some cold drizzle about 5 miles in, and it remained cloudy for much of the morning.

After completing this loop, I met up with Dave and the group to run 3 miles from Veteran's Park to Runner's World. Since I was not running the St. Patrick's Day 5K, I turned around and headed back to the Park for 13 miles. Got to see some familiar faces once I got there. Enjoyed saying hello to Robb, Dawn, and Stephanie.

For my last 7 miles, I decided to hit Riverside. Typically, this path would not be my preference, but I knew it well, and knew well how to get pretty close to 7 miles. I headed north and crossed to the west side of the river on Southwest. I then ran south past the pedestrian bridge for about half a mile, turned around, and crossed the bridge to the Midland Valley trail, which I followed to 15th. From there, I ran back to Veteran's Park, still lacking about 8/10 of a mile. I ran on the sidewalk on the east side of Riverside Drive. As I approached Denver, I knew what was coming. I was in my 19th mile, and for some strange reason, I went ahead and turned northeast on Denver and hit that ridiculous hill. By the time I made it to the top to turn around, I was practically walking. I regained some strength on the way back down and was feeling good knowing that I could have tacked on an additional 6 miles without crashing.

One discipline this long run helped me with was that of focusing on pace over a long period of time rather than time or distance. Looking at time and distance that late in a long run can become a little discouraging for me, so I decided to focus instead on maintaining pace, and not only did it relieve the discouragement, but I think it helped me to run faster, as I was only thinking about keeping my current pace under 9. Maintaining that sub-9 minute pace is what is going to enable me to cross the line in OKC in under 4 hours. It was a good lesson.

I have no idea what happened at mile 11.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 658 ft Location: Tulsa, OK Elev. Gain: +3 ft Date: 03/13/10 Up/Downhill: [+859/-856] Time: 06:41 AM Difficulty: 3.9 / 5.0 Weather: Overcast 45 F temp; 76% humidity 45 F heat index; winds NW 6 Performance Distance: 20.08 miles Time: 2:53:49 Speed: 6.9 mph Pace: 8' 39 /mi Calories: 2619 Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 8' 52 +0' 13 6.8 -0.2 +76 ft 2 8' 51 +0' 12 6.8 -0.2 -9 ft 3 8' 40 +0' 01 6.9 -0.0 +20 ft 4 8' 36 -0' 03 7.0 +0.0 -43 ft 5 8' 29 -0' 10 7.1 +0.1 -50 ft 6 8' 34 -0' 05 7.0 +0.1 +23 ft 7 8' 45 +0' 06 6.8 -0.1 -3 ft 8 8' 46 +0' 07 6.8 -0.1 -3 ft 9 8' 01 -0' 38 7.5 +0.5 -13 ft 10 7' 48 -0' 51 7.7 +0.8 -6 ft 11 10' 04 +1' 25 6.0 -1.0 +9 ft 12 8' 27 -0' 12 7.1 +0.2 -13 ft 13 8' 42 +0' 03 6.9 -0.0 +33 ft 14 8' 32 -0' 07 7.0 +0.1 -40 ft 15 8' 38 -0' 01 6.9 +0.0 +13 ft 16 8' 30 -0' 09 7.0 +0.1 -10 ft 17 8' 38 -0' 01 6.9 +0.0 -6 ft 18 9' 02 +0' 23 6.6 -0.3 +29 ft 19 8' 59 +0' 20 6.7 -0.3 -3 ft 20 9' 10 +0' 31 6.5 -0.4 -4 ft end 9' 17 +0' 38 6.5 -0.5 +3 ft Versus average of 8' 39 min/mile

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