Did It Make Me Stronger, Nietzsche?

It was 76 degrees at 6am this morning, so beating the heat just wasn't going to happen. I decided to drive to the local high school and run down the hill to the trail. I was hoping to run through the triathlon area before they started. It worked out well as I ran past the starting line about 20 minutes before their start time. As I passed through the triathlon area, I asked a cop if I would be able to come back through on my way back. He said yes, but I would have to run on the grass in the middle median. Knowing that I could get back through, I decided to keep running south for another 5 miles.

The trail was pretty deserted, partly because it was so early, partly because of the triathlon, and partly due to the fact that a lot of runners raced a 10 miler yesterday and were taking today off. I settled into a zone pretty easily and just focused on the mile I was in. I didn't worry about pace or how much longer I would be out there.

On my way back toward the triathlon, I debated taking a detour across the new bridge so I wouldn't have to run through the race sight. However, it turned out that the bike portion of the event was in full gear and they were actually racing down State Route 315, which runs alongside the bike path that I was running on. For 2 miles I was able to watch the bikers race down the highway. It was very cool to watch and also helped keep my mind off of my running for a while. A guy on a bike passed me during this phase and said, "Wow, you're doing a long run today. I saw you out here earlier." Little did he know, I was only half way done at that point.

Knowing that the path was clear of racers, I decided to go ahead and run through the triathlon start/finish area. It was no problem as all but a handful of swimmers had finished and everyone else was racing down the highway. I continued running back to the high school where I quickly swapped my empty water bottle for a full one and headed back down to the bike path.

The last 6 miles were tough, as the sun was now doing it's thing. As I ran up the path, I realized that the 10k portion of the triathlon run was going to go right through this area and that on my way back it was likely that there would be a ton of runners racing along this path. There wasn't anything I could do about it. I was committed to the run and there was no where else to go. It turned out OK though as I only encountered about 12-15 runners on my way back and there was plenty of room for everyone.

I finally finished, ever so slowly. I knew I wasn't running fast and I was intentionally keeping the pace comfortable, but I ended up running about 45 seconds per mile slower than my normal long run pace. Ouch. But I usually run at the fast end of the long run scale and even running 45 seconds slower, I was still in my long run general aerobic pace range. So it's all good. Next week is a recovery week and I'm looking forward to it.