Today was day 4 of the Summer Camp Series. Today’s race is also known as Wandering Wolf. The course was a section of the Beaver Islands Trail that was just south of River Bluffs Regional Park in St. Cloud. It was an out-and-back route. To complete a marathon, we needed to do 14 laps.
I had trouble sleeping last
night, because one of my toes hurt when it rubbed against the sheets. When I got up, I drained the blisters under
the toenails of both big toes. I’ve been
doing that twice a day, but there’s always more fluid.
Despite my best efforts, I wasn’t
able to drain much fluid from the blister on my left heel. There’s a thick bump there, and I can’t
flatten it out. There’s a spot that’s
sensitive to pressure, and that bump ensures there’ll always be extra pressure
there when I walk. On Monday, I was
feeling it even when I walked at a casual pace.
I knew that would be an issue today, but I just had to tune it out.
The regular start time was
6:00, but there was an early start at 5:00.
I didn’t expect it to be as hot today as it was on Sunday, but I still took
the early start. That’s what most people
were doing.
Last Friday, I learned that I
can walk a marathon in 5:15 with an all-out effort. On Sunday, I learned that I couldn’t expect
to bounce back and do the same thing after only one day off. Today, I was hoping to learn what pace I
could sustain without blowing up, when I already had tired legs. I was guessing that pace would be somewhere
between 12:30 and 13:00, but I wouldn’t know for sure until I tried it.
I was conflicted about whether
to wear a GPS watch or a plain stopwatch.
On one hand, it would be nice to see every mile split, so I could associate
how I felt with a precise pace. The
problem with that is I tend to get preoccupied with my pace instead of paying
attention to how I feel. I opted for the
GPS watch, so I would know if I started walking too fast.
We started about 45 minutes
before sunrise, but there was enough ambient light that I could see the trail
without carrying a light. As I started
walking, I quickly got into a nice rhythm.
I wasn’t trying to walk as fast as I did in my last two races, yet there
were only two people in front of me. One
was Tim, who was the only person to run the entire race. The other was Jesse, who was leading us through
the first lap. Everyone else was either
walking or doing a run/walk mix.
Apparently, they all started out walking.
Because of the blister on my
left heel, I was reluctant to let my heel make contact with the ground. For most of the first lap, I was walking on
the balls of my feet. That shortened my
stride, but I seemed to have a fast enough turnover to maintain a descent pace.
I walked the first mile in
12:32. That was at the low end of the range
that I thought would be sustainable.
Based on how it felt, I decided to keep my pace between 12:30 and 13:00,
if I could.
By the end of my first lap, I
was sometimes making contact with my heel.
When I did, I felt the blister.
I walked my second mile in
12:23. After realizing I had inadvertently
sped up, I eased up in the next mile.
That’s how it went for most of the race.
If my pace ever got faster than 12:30, I slowed down. If I was in danger of getting slower than
13:00, I sped up. Most of my mile splits
were in the 12:30s, but they ranged from 12:23 to 12:59.
By the end of my second lap, I was
rolling through my whole foot, instead of staying off my heel. That was inevitable. It caused some discomfort from the blister on
my heel, but now that I was in a nice rhythm, it was getting easier to tune out
the pain.
I was in the second half of my
third lap when the 6:00 runners started.
Most of them were doing the 5K or 10K, but there was at least one
additional runner doing the marathon. Later
in that lap, Tim lapped me. He would go
on to lap me two more times, but nobody else ever passed me. Despite walking the whole way, I was the
second fastest person in the marathon.
When I finished nine miles, it
occurred to me that I was more than one third done. I compared how I felt today to how I felt at
the same point in Sunday’s race. It was
an easy comparison. On Sunday, I was
already running out of gas at this point.
Today, I was under control. The
pace I was walking took some effort, but the effort seemed sustainable.
In the middle third of the
race, I started to notice some sore muscles.
I’m used to having soreness in my glutes, hamstrings, and/or shins. Those
are all things I experienced at different times in my other races. Today, I also had soreness in my quads. I don’t usually get sore quads when I’m
walking. I think it’s because of the
undulations in the course.
Earlier in the race, my
impression of the course was that it was flat.
When Tim passed me in lap three, he made a comment about the hill being tiring. I didn’t notice the same hill until the next
lap. The course was actually rolling. There was one particularly long section that had
a gentle upgrade. I found myself working
harder here. In the opposite direction,
this section was downhill. It was here
that I was most apt to notice soreness in my quads.
By the halfway point of the
race, I was no longer confident that my pace was going to be sustainable. For now, I could keep my pace within my
target range, but it was starting to take more effort. I was confident, however, that it wouldn’t be
a struggle to finish the race. That was
a big improvement over how I felt on Sunday.
We occasionally went under
trees, but most of the course was exposed to the sun. Fortunately, we had some cloud cover. We also had a breeze. That helped a lot.
When I finished my 18th mile, I
was more than two thirds done. For the
third time, I compared how I felt today to how I felt on Sunday. I was having to work harder, but I was still
keeping my pace in the same range. On
Sunday, by contrast, I had given up on maintaining my pace. In the last third of Sunday’s race, I was
just trying to finish.
At some point, I started to
feel pain from the big toe on my left foot.
That was both good news and bad news.
Obviously, any time you have a new pain, that’s bad news. Why was it also good news? I no longer noticed the blister on my
heel. I also no longer noticed any sore
muscles. When you have multiple aches
and pains, you tend to notice the one that’s screaming the loudest. I wasn’t happy about the pain in my toe, but
it was actually a welcome change of pace to feel that instead of my heel.
The breeze became more
noticeable, but it depended which direction I was walking. In the first half of each lap, I tended not
to notice it. In the second half of the
lap, it had a really nice cooling effect.
That made the two halves of each lap feel different, both physically and
psychologically. When I started a lap, I
focused on how many laps I had remaining.
When I reached the turnaround, I looked forward to enjoying the breeze
on the way back.
With two and a half laps to go,
I glanced at my watch. I’m not sure why
I did that. I was reading splits at each
mile, not by lap. Still, I noticed the
total elapsed time. By now, I had an
idea how long it would take me to finish the race. If I was correct, I still had more than an
hour to go. Two and a half laps sounded
manageable. Having more than an hour
left didn’t.
As I finished my 12th lap, I
finally felt like the remaining distance was something I could easily
handle. After slowing down to drink some
Gatorade at the aid station, I really launched myself into the next lap. As a result, my next mile was a few seconds
faster than my target range. Normally, I
would’ve eased up a bit in the next mile, but I maintained the same effort. At this point, I was no longer worried about
wearing myself out. I didn’t work hard
to keep up the same pace, but I also didn’t go out of my way to slow down. The result was that my next mile was also in
the 12:20s.
I did the same think at the
start of my last lap, and I had the same result. My last two full miles were also in the
12:20s. That’s four straight miles that
were below my target range for pace, but none of them was faster than 12:25.
I kept up the same effort until
I came around the last corner and saw the aid station. Then I walked as fast as I could to the
finish.
I finished in 5:33:16, which
was good for second place overall. When
I thought the last two and a half laps would take more than an hour, I was
wrong. I didn’t realize they would be my
fastest laps of the race. I was assuming
the second half of the race would take at least as long as the first half. Instead, the second half was three minutes
faster.
After the race, I was winded. I was under control until the last tenth of a
mile. It was my fast finish that left me
out of breath. I spent longer than usual
rehydrating and talking to people in the finish area.
When I got back to the hotel,
my quads were unusually sore. That’s
normal after running, particularly after an all-out effort. I don’t usually have sore quads after walking. Also, this wasn’t an all-out effort. I felt better after a hot bath and some
stretching, but I’m looking forward to a rest day tomorrow.
Today’s race was slower than my
last two, but I felt like it was a success.
I did a good job of keeping my pace in a sustainable range. I have a better idea now how I should pace
myself during the Alaska Series.
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