Today was day two of the
Summer Camp Series. Today, we were
running in Sauk Rapids. Our course was
16 out-and-back laps on a paved trail next to the Mississippi River. It was the third straight day that we had
views of the river.
The temperature today was
a few degrees warmer than yesterday. It
was 65 at the start, and it got into the upper 80s by noon. The air quality was still poor.
To reduce the tension on
my Achilles tendon, I put extra padding under my left heel. That helped.
I still noticed it a little, but it didn’t bother me nearly as much as
yesterday.
I didn’t get as much
sleep last night, so I knew I would start out feeling sluggish. For the second straight day, I started the
race drinking Coke instead of Gatorade.
In the early laps, I was
running a little faster than yesterday.
I wasn’t putting any extra effort into it. I think I was faster because I had better
traction on pavement than I did yesterday running on gravel. Also, today’s course was flatter.
I knew I would need to
take walking breaks as it got hotter, but I started out running, so I would
have room to slow down later. My goal at
the outset was to run at least six laps before starting to take walking
breaks. After finishing my first six
laps, I committed to running for two more laps without any walking.
At the halfway point, I
was about eight minutes faster than yesterday.
By now, it had warmed up about 10 degrees, so I needed to start taking
walking breaks to manage the heat.
Starting with lap nine, I
took a one-minute walking break at each turnaround, for a total of two minutes
of walking per lap. I did that for the
next four laps.
I focused on half a lap
at a time. After I finished a walking
break, I only thought about running to the next turnaround. Then I could take another walking break.
As the temperature climbed
into the 80s, one minute of walking wasn’t enough. Beginning with lap 13, I started walking for
two minutes at each turnaround.
The longer walking breaks
gave me more time to cool down. Also,
since I was covering more ground walking, I didn’t have to run as far to reach
the other end of the course.
With two laps to go, it
occurred to me that I could walk the rest of the way and still finish in six
hours. I wanted to get done sooner if I
could, so I kept up the same run/walk mix.
When I was halfway
through my last lap, I caught up to Fran, who was doing a mixture of running
and brisk walking. I finished that lap
with her. My finish time was 5:35:15,
which was faster than the previous two days.
I added a new piece to my
chain of medals. Today’s medal featured
the battle of the state birds. The loon is
the official state bird. Most
Minnesotans regard the mosquito as the unofficial state bird.
Today went well, but tomorrow will be tougher. We had a lot of shade today, but tomorrow’s course is mostly out in the open.
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