This weekend I wanted to get a 17 miler in - the last long run was two weeks ago @ 15 miles, and last weekend being the Hampton half course @ 13 miles, I was all set to up the distance this weekend a notch.
It's amazing how quickly distance endurance can be lost. One might think that since I just did a full marathon in mid-October, that I should just about be able to do a full marathon again any day of the week. However, a solid month after the marathon was extremely reduced mileage on account of my right foot, and then even with a half marathon in mid-November, it was only a month and a half later that I did 11.5 miles and was glad to be done when I was, because I could feel my left knee getting 'squishy' (something I've found to be an indication that it is close to time to stop). Fortunately, the rebuild to previous distance is significantly easier the second time around - it just takes patience to not try and do it too quickly. Honestly, having the bike trainer really helps with that - allows me to do something worthwhile in lieu of running when I shouldn't otherwise be.
A few of the initial distance building runs I remember fairly vividly, but honestly I don't really remember a whole lot about the 17 miler. Looking back through my log, it looks to have been in mid-July. Oddly enough, it doesn't look like I had been taking walk breaks every mile, which really confuses me. I have no idea why that would be. Either way, my avg HR for that run was 159 and the average pace was 9:53/mile. I'm sure it being summer has something to do with it, but it gives a baseline for effort.
Compared to that, a 17 mile run now is a relative cake-walk - pace is a bit north of 9 min/miles, but the average HR was in the mid-140's. I still took walk breaks, but this time it was every two miles instead of every mile. There were two reasons for this change - I'd like to eventually cut out walk breaks if possible (although I have a feeling I'll still always benefit from them), but the more important reason is that two miles is perfect timing for refueling and rehydrating. This way, it's easy to make sure I consume calories and drink water every 15-20 minutes (as opposed to trying to remember every other break, when I'd be liable to mix something up). I also brought some of my homemade energy goop with me as well - my plan was to consume it all during the 10-11 mile loop around the local reservoir, and then refill the gel flask and water bottles at home, and then head out for the remaining several miles. However, when I got to about mile 8, I felt like I was continually refueling and rehydrating myself sufficiently that I wouldn't need a refill in order to finish what miles were remaining.
The rest of the run was pretty uneventful and done in a steady state. It turned out I had to improvise at the end a bit to tack on the last 3/4 to 1/2 mile - but I was feeling good enough to do that as opposed to skimp out on them (it can be very tempting to turn it in following the same road path you always follow when doing a common loop).
After the run, I took and ice bath for the 20 minutes, followed by a hot shower and my typical refueling meal after a long workout - a burrito from Chipotle. Later on in the evening, I hopped on the bike trainer for 30 minute easy pace spin in order to see if something like that helps with recovery (get blood moving around without the impact).
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