Run 41, 2010 …32 km bites the dust, now it’s taper time!

Thankfully, the gale force winds of the last two or three days died out for today’s scheduled long run. I had MM drop me off 32 km from home so that the last remaining wind would be at my back (10 kph E) and for the most part it worked except for a 6 km section going North on Highway 60 where the predicted Easterly winds suddenly decided to be Northerly and so I lost a lot of time running against the wind. Plus there was a long hill where the Highway 60 bridge crosses the North Saskatchewan River and the elevation change there totals about 50 meters going down and another 50 meters going back up out of the river valley. I gained time going down for sure, but on the way up I tried to maintain an average pace of 7 minutes per km but ended up going 8 minutes per km up that hill.

I ran all the way on major highways except for a few km on side roads. It’s pretty brutal running on highways, the noise from the traffic is really almost unbearable after a while and every time a large truck went by I got blasted by the shock wave. It was literally like experiencing an explosive blast. Not to mention the fumes. A small advantage to running on highways is the fairly wide shoulder, but still, it really beats you up if you are running a long way. It’s not my favorite running spot, to be sure, but it had the advantage of being less complicated to plan a long route such as this one.

I lost a lot of time in the last 5 or so kilometers, my average pace dropping from about 7:05 to 7:25 at the finish. I walked for a minute every 2 kilometers except for the last 4 kilometers when I was feeling too crippled for that to make a difference any more.

Now that it over, it’s taper time. I only have a 21 km run next week and a 16 the following week. I’ll still be doing my regular 11 and 12 kilometer runs as well.

Avenue of the Giants! More oxygen down there at that low altitude! Plus I just gave blood last Thursday evening so I’ll be all topped up in the oxygen carrying capacity department by the time the marathon happens. That’s because I will eat chunks of iron and rusty bits of sheet metal so I can make more oxygen carrying red blood cells. That’s my own personal pep-talk. Reality has nothing to do with it.