First Long Run Since ATT Marathon

Technical details are here

My first workout with the Spring Marathon group. The group is much much smaller than ATT, but there's about the same mix of faster and slower (my speed) runners. Some folks are training for Marathons in the beginning of April (London, Paris) and so were doing 20-22 while the late April marathoners were doing 16-18. Although I'm less than 3 weeks out from ATT, I elected to run 18.

I did see a few familiar faces. Mary and Dee from the Brew Runners were there this morning to run about 6 miles easy. We ran together for a bit and it was good to catch up.

This was the first long run where I've tried to keep my pulse down in the 130-140 range. Man, it was annoyingly slow and I was almost the last person in behind even the 22 milers. Took me 4 hours to run 18 miles. I guess that's ok. If nothing else, I'll get used to being on my feet for a longer period of time. My pace was somewhere in the 11's whereas my ATT Marathon pace was in the high 10's. That's actually good, since long run pace is supposed to be slower.

Other nuggets:

I decided to use the mp3 player, but it had no juice when I first tried to turn it on several miles in. Thankfully, I had some money in my shoe pocket and was able to get a battery at the Walgreen's on 45th and Guadalupe. The woman in front of me in line at Walgreen's was taking forever buying stuff for herself for the Heart of Texas Regatta. Her daughter's team is racing. Brought back old times.

Evidently, Saturday morning at the intramural fields is when the Chinese folks in Austin play softball. Part of the run involved a loop around the inside of the fence of the fields and I ran past at least 4 games/8 teams of all-Chinese softball teams. They could have all been students I guess.

I ran the Mt Bonnell hill about 11 miles into the run! These spring marathoners aren't playing around. The Mac Special is a challenging run. I'm feeling pretty beat as I write this. Gonna make it an early night.