A day after completing this ridiculous 20-mile run, I’m still a bit stiff and sore.  I’ve got some tightness in my left hip flexor, and my left ankle isn’t feeling too grand either.  Interestingly, both knees are fine, as is the right ankle, which earlier had been giving me trouble.

So, 20 miles.  We’re having this heat wave up here:  55 degrees on Saturday, 56 today, 63 tomorrow!  But yesterday there was a bit of a break in the warmth–it was about 35 degrees with a stiff south wind.  I set out at approximately 2:00 p.m., headed east to the lake, turned north for about three miles, then went back south.  I did this because there’s only one water fountain along the lakefront path that stays on through the winter, and I wanted to hit it about midway through the run to refill my water bottles.  Going south, I reached said fountain at about the eighth mile, and continued south to the Museum Campus, where I turned around and went home.  This divided up the run into four somewhat equal phases.  Map of the run here.

Phase One:  Home to Foster Avenue
Mild stiffness in the left ankle to begin the run.  A slight fear that I’m not wearing enough clothing.  I wear UnderArmor tights, running shorts, a long-sleeved microfiber shirt, running gloves, and my new technical fleece hat.  (This new hat is much, much warmer than the one I lost in Arkansas.)  Also my long-run socks and the new pair of shoes.  Running into the wind without an UnderArmor top, this ensemble is a little chilly.  Some mud on the path at the lakefront, but heading north, the path is mostly clear.  The south wind, at my back, makes this part of the run very easy.  Belmont Harbor is still frozen over, which makes it a little like an air conditioner.  Phases two through four after the jump.

Phase Two:  Foster Avenue to the Water Fountain
Turning south is suddenly a bad idea.  My pace seems to slow suddenly because of the wind, though I think my split times will belie this.  One mile after turning south, at Mile 5, I stop for water and an energy gel (berry flavor).  Ankle stiffness is gone now, and the wind, though cold, is at times refreshing. Between Addison and Belmont Avenues, though, I feel like my hands are going to freeze.  But crossing back to the west of Lake Shore Drive, where the wind is less fierce, my hands warm up again.  At the water fountain, I drink some Gatorade, and refill two bottles with water.  There’s a woman there walking a giant dog who looks both sympathetic and hungry.  There are also geese.

Phase Three:  Water Fountain to Museum Campus
The path is quite muddy around and past the water fountain.  Around Fullerton Avenue, I catch up to a woman who is running just fast enough for me not to be able to pass her.  And of course, for multiple miles, she is running the exact route I am running, so I hope she doesn’t think I’m stalking her.  Giant puddles and mud around the North Avenue Bridge, so that I cannot avoid soaking my feet and getting everything clotted with mud.  Very windy and cold along the water from North Avenue south to Oak Street.  The curve at Oak Street, as usual, is coated in ice and very uneven snow.  But the path south from Oak Street to Navy Pier is clear.  At Mile 10, along this stretch roughly at Chicago Avenue, I stop to drink water and take another gel (vanilla).  The thermometer at Navy Pier reads 31 degrees.  Crossing the Chicago River, I notice that it’s darker than I’d like it to be.  On the straightaway from Monroe Street to Balbo Drive, I catch up to, but am unable to pass, a large man with long hair and a moustache.  At one point, he turns around and gives me a thumbs-up.  At the southernmost reach of this stretch, Balbo Drive, he stops, turns around, and puts up his hand to give me a high-five.  As I pass him, high-fiving him, he yells, “Yeeeah!” loudly.  I’ve never gotten so much enthusiasm on a winter long run.  After Balbo Drive, heading into the Museum Campus, there’s a quick descent, so my pace picks up quite a bit.  This is soon followed, though, by a relatively steep climb, which slows me down.  However, I’m now at the turnaround point, and…

Phase Four:  Museum Campus to Home
My turn-around is at approximately 12.75 miles.  Looking at my watch, I realize that I’m on pace to hit 13.1 before two hours have passed.  Thanks to that incline I mentioned earlier, and the speed with which I run down it, I pass the half-marathon point at 1:59:57.  Headed back north now, it’s much warmer with the wind at my back.  I think I’m beginning to look as though I’m suffering from an existential despair or something, because I’m at that point in the run where I get funny looks from other folks on the trail.  Perhaps this is because I have salt crusted on my face, or because my form is starting to go, or because it’s starting to get darkish outside and I’m still underdressed.  At Navy Pier, Mile 15, I stop again, more water, more gel (chocolate).  It’s 28 degrees now by the thermometer.  I keep headed home, stumble over the ice at the Oak Street curve, and have a newfound energy–a kind of second wind, but not as extreme because I hadn’t really ever hit the wall–when I resume running after getting through the ice.  Where at this point I would normally take walking breaks, and maybe have some more fluids, I instead dig in and make it all the way to the Sheridan Road stop light (Mile 19) before stopping.  While drinking my second bottle of Gatorade and waiting on the light to change, I’m greeted by a woman driving by in a car.  ”What are you training for?” she asks.  ”Little Rock Marathon, in a few weeks,” I reply.  She says that she knew I was serious because of my water belt, and she asks what mile I’m at.  When I tell her I’ve just finished 19 miles, she congratulates me and wishes me luck with my training.  She drives off, the light changes, and I head home.  The several stop lights between the lake and my house make for a nice cool-down mile, punctuated with a few breaks, and of course, the stares of various pedestrians.

This week was a “step-back” week, meaning the long run is shorter, as are some of the mid-week runs.  It’s meant to help the body catch up and recover in preparation for another push upward in mileage.  Considering that I missed 26 of the miles I was supposed to run last week, I was already kind of stepped back.  But nevertheless, I followed the plan–5 miles each Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, all on the Tropical Rainforest Treadmills in the University of Chicago Amazon Gymnasium.  Well, not really, but they do keep it hot in there.  And when you’ve gotten used to running in like 12 degree weather, 75 is really, really hot.

Yesterday I did an 8-mile pace run, actually beating my projected marathon pace (1:08:32, for an average pace of 8:36, 24 full seconds faster than I hope to run in the race).  It was “warm” outside — 34 degrees — and I used the balmy weather as a chance to practice my pace out of doors and to start to break in my new pair of running shoes, the ones I’ll be racing in in March.

Today I did 13 miles.  I was trying to keep it slow, because, you know, that’s what they tell you to do for the long runs.  I ended up averaging 9:19/mile, which is probably 20 seconds faster than I should have taken it.  But it felt like I was slogging along and would never get anywhere.  I’m tired and all, but I really felt like I could have pushed it harder.  Which is probably how I’m supposed to feel at the end of a relatively easy week.  Today’s run totaled 2:01:02.  Splits after the jump.

My first 20-miler of this cycle is in seven days.  Let’s hope my ankles make it.

Split times for today’s 13-miler:

Mile 1: 9:02
Mile 2: 9:16
Mile 3: 9:14
Mile 4: 9:20
Mile 5: 9:32
Mile 6: 9:24
Mile 7: 9:16
Mile 8: 9:22
Mile 9: 9:36
Mile 10: 9:17
Mile 11: 9:28
Mile 12: 9:02
Mile 13: 9:14

At this point, I would like aver that at no point during the future years of triathlon training will I go swimming in Lake Michigan when the air temperature is below 32 degrees.

Surprisingly, most of the lakefront path has been cleared of snow, so the bulk of my run was really quite easy.  There was, of course, this one mile, from around Oak Street south to Navy Pier (see map), where Lake Michigan likes to vomit itself up onto the path — it was about 8 inches deep in snow and ice, and very difficult going.  When I passed Navy Pier (Mile 6), the big sign there told me it was 16 degrees.  Around the Museum Campus there was a poorly marked detour, because a bunch of the path is being rebuilt, and I got lost for a little bit.  Of course, I got lost again on my way back, and the map I attach I think only approximates what actually happened down around there.  When I hit Navy Pier again on the way back (Mile 12), the temperature was down to 11 degrees.

The last four miles or so, I was running into the wind, and it was starting to get dark.  I thought my face was going to freeze.  In my final mile, when I re-enter the city streets, I had a couple unfortunate run-ins with pedestrians, a few of whom were walking dogs.  After two and a half hours of running, one doesn’t want to break pace because others are mindlessly taking up the whole of a sidewalk, unaware of what is going on around them.  In any case, I dug in, gritted my teeth, and shuffled on home.  My total time:  2:43:02.  Split times after the jump.

Map of today’s run

Split times for the 17-mile run — see if you can guess which miles involved the deep snow!

Mile 1: 9:11
Mile 2: 8:54
Mile 3: 9:19
Mile 4: 9:25
Mile 5: 11:16
Mile 6: 9:08
Mile 7: 9:20
Mile 8: 9:35
Mile 9: 9:30
Mile 10: 9:41
Mile 11: 9:13
Mile 12: 9:22
Mile 13: 11:39
Mile 14: 9:24
Mile 15: 9:34
Mile 16: 9:15
Mile 17: 9:17

Jett's car, with snow

My week in training was going so well.  On Monday, I swam a mile–the first time I’d ever gone that far.  Granted, I’m slow, and have to take a lot of pauses, and have terrible form, but I made it through 72 lengths of the pool.

Yesterday, as the Arctic blasts were beginning to hit us, I hit the treadmill for a quick 4-miler, and did some upper-body stuff in the weight room after that.  (The run took exactly 37:02, for those of you who care about that sort of thing.)

Today, I was scheduled to do 8 miles.  But four more inches of snow, contributing to what is now a 15-inch snowpack, made my car quite impossible to move.

I could have taken the train to school today to use the gym, but our evening temperatures were forecast to plunge to below zero.  Rather than schlep to Hyde Park with my school things, my gym things, and my eighteen layers of outdoor clothing, only to have to schlep back up to Lakeview with all those things plus post-8-mile fatigue and with a deficit of degrees, I decided to stay home and do my 8-mile run tomorrow.

All this means is that I won’t get a rest day on Friday–all my other workouts should proceed on schedule.  I’m hoping that the various sidewalks and paths I need get cleared by Sunday, when it’s forecast to be a relatively balmy 22 degrees.  I will, somehow, be running 17 miles that day.