Long Run - The 18 Mile-er - Oct 18,2008

After a relatively shorter run last week (11 miles), it was time to break another record for the longest run so far, 18 mile-er (rhymes with the 18 wheeler right ?). I decided to do this with the faster group that does 9 min/mile speed. I didn't realize that these guys were starting at 6:00 am in the morning. I went to the location at the usual 6:30 am time. By this time, the full marathon group had already run 4 miles and they came back to the starting point.

We started at 6:45 am. We were doing a 9 min/mile pace. This was my previous tempo pace but I was with the leading pack of the group for most of the run. We took a 30 seconds break after doing 3 miles. I had my first Gu gel here with water. This is one of the things that I liked about this group, they spend very less time in the water break. Then we started and did another 2.5 miles and took another water break. I didn't know why we were taking another break with a short distance. I realized later that were going to be running on the roads of downtown with no access to water for the next 5 miles! In the first one hour, we finished 6.75 miles with 2 breaks (total of 1.5 minutes for break)

The last I went to downtown was to go to a club and it was just amazing to run through the downtown streets on foot. We kept the 9 min/mile pace even running on the roads of the downtown. Finally after 9.5 miles, we took another water break for about 1.5 minutes. I made a mistake here of having too much water. It's always a good idea to have water just enough to quench your thirst. I also had my second Gu gel packet here. I started slowing down after 10 miles but we were still doing 9.10 min/mile. After 12 miles, I really got tired and slowed down a lot. Now I was walking for about 1 minute and then running for 9 minutes. The entire group of runners over took me at this point. I was pretty much at the end of the pack for the last 1.5 miles. I was doing 10min/mile for the last 3 miles. I managed to finish the 14 miles in 2:08:00 which is about 9:10 min/mile.

I still had 4 miles to do which the group had done in the morning. I went back to the trail near my house and started running on the trail. I was very exhausted at this point and started at 10min/mile pace. I was running for about 0.9 miles and then walking for 0.1 mile. I managed to somehow finish these 4 miles in about 40 min. I finished the 18 miles in 2 hr 48 min (about 9:17/mile). With a 3 minute water break, this would be 2 hr 51 min (about 9:30 min/mile pace). It's amazing that I have improved the speed by about 1 mile/hour in the past 2 months !

Here are the stats from my GPS watch:

Activity	Type	Activity	Type	Miles	Time (HH:MM:SS)	Avg. Pace (min/Mile)	Avg. Speed	Calories Burnt	Avg. Heart Rate
Morning	Morning	Evening	Evening
Running	Long Run	Strength	Gym - Back & Biceps	18.01	2:47:28	9:17	6.5	2320	162