Normally I would do my long run on Saturday. However, I moved my long run to Sunday so that I could attend a Krav Maga women’s self-defense class on Saturday with my sister and adult niece. As a woman runner it’s really important to be aware of your surroundings and it certainly doesn’t hurt to have some kind of formal self-defense training. The idea of these courses is not to teach you how to handle yourself in a confrontation or win a trophy in a tournament. It’s to give a woman life skills and techniques to stop an attack and give her time to get away.
It was an eye-opening experience and I plan to make this a semi-annual activity. It’s not something you can learn in just one class and become an expert but it’s important to practice these skills and take refresher classes so that if put in a situation where adrenaline is rushing you don’t have to try to think. I can’t recommend this highly enough for any woman, whether she is a runner or not.
Long run detour
Today is the final day of my first taper week. Just 12 miles for my long run today, which sounds really funny to say “just”. However, when you’ve been running 15 to 20 miles every weekend for the last several weeks, 12 sounds really doable!
It started off really well. I was feeling good and the temperatures were mild at 49 degrees and sunny and expected to rise to a comfortable 60 degrees by the time I was done. I’ve been saying that we’ve been getting a lot of rain lately but I never expected that it would impact my long run on my normal bike path route. When I got to 1.8 miles though my path was completely blocked by an overflowed community lake that flooded the pathway. There was no way around it and I was not about to try and wade through that disgusting looking dark water. It would have come well up to my shins at the deepest part.
I had no choice but to turn around but I had no idea where I would run to get to 12 miles. As I ran back the way I’d come I calculated how many times I’d have to run back and forth on this short stretch to get to my distance goal. That sounded absolutely horrendous so I quickly squashed that idea. My only alternative was to forge my own path off the bikeway and into the surrounding business and industrial area. I’m not very familiar with the area but it’s a nice part of town so I felt safe running there.
Into the unknown
Wouldn’t you know, the first thing I come upon as I head off the bike path is a massive, long hill. I don’t normally run hills these days since my hilly half marathon is over but today was a new and different challenge. I took the hill slow and just worked on keeping my heart rate in the aerobic zone as much as possible. Toward the crest of the hill I bumped up over that threshold but not for too long. After that, I just chose the roads I felt I wanted to run down. It felt like a test of my intuition and I just trusted that I would choose the correct roads to follow.
I wound through the business district between large office building complexes and tree lined medians until I reached a main road that I’m very familiar with because it’s the same road that the Coaster train station is on. It’s a very long, main road so I followed it out and away from my final destination until I reached 8 miles. Then, I turned around and followed it back past the train station and along the same route I took during my 20 mile runs, only this time the opposite direction. The road turns into the bike path and ends at the parking lot where I had parked.
The detour ended up being a fun experience and I liked the different scenery. Since I had to keep track of my location and distance my mind kept busy and the run went by quickly. I had to make sure I didn’t go out too far because I really didn’t want to run more than 12 miles on my first taper long run.
Long run results
I checked my running stats after my run and I noticed that my pace was much faster than my conversational pace goal by more than 40 seconds per mile and my heart rate was about 8 beats higher also. I think some of these numbers had to do with my adrenaline of not knowing where I was going exactly and my heightened awareness of my surroundings. These elements probably also made me run faster without realizing it. My Coros watch rated it as a tempo run, rather than my goal of a base run.
Some runs don’t work out as planned. However, it’s important not to give up and throw in the towel just because it wasn’t what I had planned. I suppose some people may have seen the blocked path as an excuse to head home for the day. There’s a lot of prep work that goes into getting ready for a long run. So, when that thought crossed my mind it bummed me out to think that I got this far and wouldn’t get to finish. I knew that wasn’t an option and that I had to figure out a way to complete my run. Turned out that this was one of my favorite runs this training season.
Taper week number 1 is in the books. Two more to go then race day!
Workout
- 12 mile long run at conversational pace
Weekly recap
- 32 miles run
- 1 strength workout
- 1 cross training on spin bike