Lonely long run

Since I'm going to the beach today for about a week, I wanted to get my long run in this morning rather than in Duck. Everyone else had to work though, so I was on my own. I could have gone 30 minutes earlier with Bob and Justin, but I wanted to eat something and I felt I needed the sleep. Not that getting up at 4:25 gave me that much sleep...

It was so humid outside. We had a storm last night so it was still muggy. I was a little concerned with getting to the quarry and not being able to see, but it turned out that was the least of my concerns. There were several downed trees started at the actual quarry and going all the way up to the Shoney's sign. At one point I had to stop my watch and climb through a few trees. Then there was the mud. Since it has rained only once in a month or so, the earth was unprepared to absorb the liquid necessary from last night's down-pour. I had problems with footing all the way to the slavery museum. A few times I almost got stuck. It's like quick sand!

I had my hopes up that someone would be joining me at 6:30; possibly Andrew or Konrad. But no dice, I ran a lap around the shell trail with water and then continued on my way. I did a hospital look with a circle around the hospital like Pat suggested last week. It's about 1.20 miles around the whole thing if you go down Care Way. Good to know. Going down the hill by the stair case was a little slippery, and I felt some tightness in my right calf for a few miles but it subsided. I had no pain in my left leg like I did yesterday, so that was encouraging. I was running in the 6:25-6:35 range most of the way at this point, no longer trying to keep myself around 7:00 like I was during the first loop. My uphill mile was a whopping 8:41, so I figured that put me back quite a bit towards averaging 7:00 pace. But 15 miles I think I passed into the sub-7 territory.

I half expected Jake Pattyson from Va Runner and Mary Wash to join me for my last 2-3 miles after returning to Hanover, but he was a no-show. I tried to pick the pace up a little bit to get into the low 6's or high 5's like last week, but I didn't have it in my legs. My pace was faster from the beginning but without some company I just wasn't able to start rolling. I miss Tim, in the straightest way possible. It would have been good to have him there pulling me along that last 5k or so.

I ran around Hanover at the end to make sure I got 20 in. I was shooting for 19, but last week I ran 19.5 so I thought I should at least match that today. Next week I won't do any workouts or any real long run, so I wanted today to count.

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