A feat that would not have been possible without my good friend BodyGlide...putting that stuff on made me feel SUPER ULTRA HARDCORE. Even more so than knocking back gels.
As I mentioned last night, after I slathered BodyGlide all over my feet and various other places, a process that took a good fifteen minutes, I set my feet up for a Sock Duel--a head-to-head (or foot-to-foot, I guess I should say) competition between Balega (on the left foot) and Injinji (on the right foot). Injinjis are toe socks--they have specific slots for each toe, like gloves that go on your feet. I like them a lot, but the Balegas feel really soft and plush, so I thought I'd try one of each and see which foot felt better at the end of the run. (The TEN! MILE! RUN!)I had my standard-issue breakfast of two scrambled eggs and half a toasted buttered bagel, but I was running a little late, so I had to pretty much gulp my last bite of food and bolt out the door.
It was the usual scene in the parking lot this morning. Coach Rob (in the red shirt and black shorts) told us about the all-important mile markers so we'd know where to turn around and filled us in on water stops. There was also a big bag of gels available, so even though I brought a few Hammer gels, I took a Hammer Espresso gel (with 50 mg of caffeine) from the bag. Since I had no caffeine at all this morning, I thought it would be a good time to see if I could handle 50 mg without any ill effects.
Everyone listened attentively while contorting themselves--the usual pre-run stuff. It was a nippy 19 degrees at the start of our run. Man, was I glad I had my heavy winter pants and top layers on.
This is Mike. Everybody say, "Hi, Mike!" I met him at the very first Group Run waaaay back at the beginning of December, and it's been a while since we've both been at a Group Run at the same time. I hoped I'd be able to run alongside him today, at least for a while. He can run 9-minute miles on the treadmill, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up.We all set out not too terribly long after the proposed start time. I turned my watch on early, so I made a note to deduct a minute or so from my final time. I started out running with my homies Angela and Lindsey, but then Ty and Coach Rob caught up with us and sped up a little, and I sped up to keep up with them.
I got a chance to learn a little more about Coach Rob as we jogged along. (Funny note: Kelli asked if he had "calf implants" because he has such well-defined calves! We all laughed. Ty said he'd been thinking about saying something similar, but feared how the remark might be taken, coming from a guy.) Coach Rob played football in college as a defensive end, and as he said, "weighed 50 pounds more than I do now, and I was 21 years old."
"Oh, I'm sure it was all muscle," I replied.
"Nope. Then after college, I got fat. I decided to do something about it and started running. That was 15 years ago."
I thought about asking about his PRs, but I figured I'd just feel slow and awestruck at whatever he said.
The first water stop was about 2 1/2 miles in. I stopped for a minute (I stopped my watch at all the water stops again--okay, so maybe I'm cheating a little, sue me) and had a Dixie cup of water, and darn if Coach Rob wasn't already 200 yards in front of me when I started running again.
I eventually managed to catch up with him as he hung with the next group in front, which included Mike! So I did finally get a chance to talk with Mike for a while as we ran. I really got into our conversation and before I knew it, there was another stone mile marker at the side of the trail. I thought it was Mile 3, but it was actually Mile 4! Whoo-hoo!
It wasn't too much longer before the next water/gel stop came up on the right-hand side, just half a mile short of the 5-mile turnaround point. I wanted to stop and do a gel, but Mike was in a groove and wanted to keep going, so I waved him on and stopped my watch, which said something around 48 minutes. (We were running 10-minute miles during the segment with Coach Rob, so whoo-hoo for that!)
Time to try the espresso gel. I felt a little winded from the fast pace (you went out too fast again, my little inner voice nagged), so the caffeine would probably provide a welcome kick. The gel tasted good (I like coffee), but the cold made it kind of thick. Coach Paul, whose legs are as long as my entire body, gave me a cool tip: he said I should put the next gel pack I wanted to use inside my glove to help warm it up, which would thin it out and make it easier to swallow.
I had taken my gloves off, but when I started running again after the rest stop, I was cold and had to put them back on again. I followed Coach Paul's advice and tucked a Banana gel inside my glove for the next stop (chocolate/coffee and banana seemed like complementary flavors, I figured).
I wasn't far past the turnaround when I saw Lindsey and Angela coming the other way. We exchanged woots and waves. Then I focused on catching back up to Mike. I saw him and another female runner in the distance waaaay down the path and reeled them in ever so slowly. I think it was close to a mile before I caught them again.
This is Rebecca, the woman running alongside Mike. She actually works for LLS and (in her words) "got suckered into doing this." For someone who got suckered, she was one heck of a runner. She pulled away from me and Mike over the last mile or two and left us in the dust. Check out the frost on the sides of her hat. She was really moving it out!
It was so cold that the ends of Rebecca's pigtails got icy. Can you believe that? They actually had a thicker coating of ice while we were running, but I didn't get this shot until after we were done.We got back to the first water stop, which was now the last, and I ate my banana gel and had some more water. I really felt the banana gel kicking in, or maybe that was the caffeine from gel #1.
On we ran, eventually sighting Coach Rob again in the distance but never really catching up to him. He was actually looking for Mike so he could ask him about the IT band problems he'd been having and came back to pick us up. By this point, I was a little sore just about everywhere between my lower back and my knees, but my sartorius muscles and my glutes were leading the charge.
"Less than half a mile to go," Coach Rob encouraged us, "and as soon as we round this curve you'll see the finish."
It was a sweet, sweet sight indeed. I had a little something left in the tank, so I picked it up for the last tenth of a mile and swung past the finish at 1:44:48. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a 10:29 pace. Over TEN FREAKIN' MILES! Man, was I ever a happy camper.
Mike couldn't hang out afterwards, so I walked him back to his car and grabbed a fistful of those pretzel rods the coaches had put out for us. Good lord, those things are tasty!!
Here's a not-blurry picture of Ty for you, who finished maybe two minutes after I did. There's definitely frost in his beard if you look closely. He had to drive off to pick up one of the runners who had not turned at a fork in the trail and was going to end up in Kentucky if he didn't catch her.
Although the Injinji foot felt good, the outside of my pinky toe felt a wee bit chafed despite the BodyGlide, so the Balega foot (left) won the Sock Duel! I was driving right by the running store on my way to Panera for a post-run snack, so I stopped in and picked up some more Balega socks.It was a busy day--this is what my pedometer read when I got home!
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