the Way of the Turtle

COLD WET LONG RUN
18 Miles from Fairport to Gates
Saturday, April 22, 2006

map of the route

Saturday was the last day of classes for the AMAI Fairport location, so I went and helped with the last two classes and then got geared up to do a long training run while the Rochester instructors and students worked on getting the location into shape to turn it back over to the landlord.

The day before I had decided to do something different for this run, based in part on the weather forecast I was hearing (cold and raining.) Rather than do a pair of out-and-back runs along the Genesee Valley Greenway (too easy to wimp out and cut those short!) I decided to run from Perinton Park in Fairport to Ann's house in Gates, a distance of just over 18 miles. Since it was a point-to-point run, and I don't have a cell phone to call someone to come pick me, I knew I would have no choice but to finish what I had set out to do!

This run was also different from virtually every other one I've done in the past year in that 2/3 of it was on pavement. While in some ways pavement running is easier than trails (and so not a great way to train for a TRAIL marathon!) given my lousy knees I knew 12 miles of pavement might be a major challenge (and so this run was also a first check into the feasibility of my running the Adirondack Marathon in September, since that will be entirely on pavement, albeit with the possibility of my running parts on the unpaved shoulder.)

Anyway, finally got my gear sorted out and packed into the nifty North Face Mountain Biker waist pack that I got for Christmas (thanks, Mom and Dad!) This pack is a major piece of work - I ended up with 5 water bottles, two spare shirts, a bunch of Clif and granola bars, spare socks, etc, etc - everything I might need for a 5 hour run with no hope of support once I'd been dropped off at the start. Of course, it weighs a ton loaded with all that gear, but I used most of it during the course of the afternoon, and it sits fairly comfortably on my hips (with very little bounce! too cool!) At the last minute I decided to pull on my tights - good choice, too, because my legs were nice and warm the whole time, and they would have been freezing in just shorts. Ann dropped me off at Perinton Park, and off I went.

The weather forecast had called for rain in the morning, then clouds and maybe scattered showers all afternoon, with temperatures in the low 50's. Well, it was raining when I hit the path, and it rained until about the last hour of my run. Sometimes light, sometimes hard, but rain, rain, rain. There was also a breeze much of the time which would have been refreshing on a hot day, but which was freakin' cold today! So in fairly short order I looked like a drowned rat and only became more waterlogged as the afternoon progressed.

The first six miles, from Fairport to Perinton, are on a stone dust path - nice running surface. Saw three other people - two walkers and one runner. From Pittsford on the path was paved, and I only encountered half a dozen other nutjobs out in the rain (no surprise, most of them were runners.) At one point I had a nice chat with Chet, a local ultrarunner out training with his wife Diane for next weekend's BPAC Six Hour Run in Buffalo and then the Damn Wakely Dam 32.6 mile trail run at the end of July. It was really nice of Chet to slow down and talk to me, and they were very encouraging when I passed them on their way back. But for the most part it was just me, the rain, and the pain. Yup, running 18 miles HURTS.

Made reasonably good time... averaged a little over 15 minute miles for the first 15 miles, including two longer stops to change into a dry shirt(not it it stayed dry for long!) and consolidate fluids. The last three miles was a killer and took me almost an hour. Not only was I running along the local roads, and not only was I well into the really painful and slow shuffle last miles of a long training run, but it was mostly uphill! First a fairly gradual grade and then a steeper one for the last mile or so. That was just no fun at all.

So the total damage for the 18 miles (plus maybe a quarter mile) was 4 hours 49 minutes. Not great, but I did finish, and under fairly challenging conditions too. (And I keep reminding myself that my long training runs for the Anchorage marathon were absolutely miserable, and took substantially longer than the marathon itself. Of course, since this is my 2nd marathon, this may be the one where the long runs AND the marathon are both miserable. But I hope not.)

Two more weeks of long runs, then it's time for - TAPER! That's going to be sweet... of course, I have to survive a 20 mile and an over 20 mile run first...

JMH