The LT Report

Well I suppose it could have gone worse.

I suppose the humidty could have been at a full 100% instead of the simple, I'm guessing, 99% that it was yesterday when we went out for a cool 11 miles with 6@LT pace. sigh.

We decided to do this run at Fermilab since we were stopping at a friends on the way home. The ring is about 3.75 miles around for one lap...that means of course that three laps is just over 11 miles. Helloooooo Boring! But it was easy, and it was there and it didn't require too much brain power to make the route.

So at about 4pm off we went. We do our three miles of warm up, then six at LT, then 2 more to cool down. The tough thing about just doing laps around the ring is the fact that two times you get back to where you started....but have to keep going around. Even worse was having to pass by home twice while running at an LT clip. ANYWAYS. Our first three miles :

1. 9:20
2. 8:58
3. 8:41

We were feeling 'ok' but already soaked through our clothes with sweat. It was annoying because it didn't really feel hot when we went outside, but that humidity hits pretty hard. At this point it was...not raining....but I think there was so much humidity (don't say humidity) in the air that the air was spontaneously turning into water as we ran through it. Then it was time to start the LT miles....and just for kicks at this point, the clouds went away, and the sun came out. There are about 4 trees along the 3.75 mile loop which is the only shade you can get while running out there. I'm not making excuses for the following paces, but I do think that the weather had something to do with them :

1. 7:59
2. 7:46
3. 7:42
4. 7:47
5. 8:00
6. 7:52

This comes out to an average of 7:51 min/mile for the LT miles. A bit too slow, but it was absolutely all I had to give and still respectable. After the last LT mile we stopped for a bit and as we were right by the main building we decided to go in for some water. I noticed that even though I was sweating up a storm (all my clothes were soaked...it was gross), I had goosebumps all over my arms, which couldn't be good.

We were really really hot and sweaty and exhausted so the last two miles were pretty ugly

1. 14:49
2. 10:13

But I have to say I'm still proud of us even though we were a little too slow, because we got through it. I wanted to bitch out at about LT mile 3, but with Jason motivating us to go on and knowing I could do it, I just kept putting one leg in front of the other....and got through it alright.

We just finished a 5 mile recovery run and it's a big 20 miler tomorrow. Then the next two week look to be a bit easier than the last two weeks which makes me and my body very happy.