That was pretty mind numbing. Getting in one of my 20 milers for the Goofy Challenge in January – wanted to do it outside but the lovely Winnipeg winter weather was having none of that. It was -40 with the windchill this morning and considering that equates to “exposed skin can freeze in 5-10 minutes” getting out there for 3 hours didn’t sound too wise.
So I got on the treadmill and after an hour I could tell I was already shutting down mentally and starting to convince myself to stop. I couldn’t have that so I reset the timer and mileage on the treadmill and tried to trick the brain into thinking I only had to do a half hour. So I kept running out a half hour and then resetting and going again. This seemed to work to keep my brain in the game – definitely a trick I am going to keep in mind for other long runs – especially since I have one more 20 miler to go before Goofy and I have my doubts this cold snap will break before then.
The overall time for the run was faster than I expected – the 30 minute time chunks helped there as I kept trying to see how much I had left in the tank for each period. But also about 8 miles in I was trying to go nice and easy but I started getting shooting pains through my right knee. I backed off to a walk and figured what I would do is make sure I at least hit 10 miles before I stopped – I figured I wanted to get what might be the last 2 miles done as quickly as possible so I pushed pretty hard and surprisingly my knee felt better. So instead of going slow and steady I realized I had to get into run/walk cycles with the run portions being pretty quick. After I finished the 10 miles I realized I could keep going like that so I continued that for the rest of the run.
Most of the running then was at 7.5 mph for 4-9 minutes and then a 1 minute walk break and then back to the running. I was a nice surprise that the 2nd hour was actually faster than the first even with the knee pain I experienced early in the hour.
The 2:51:03 is total moving time – so the resetting of the treadmill and a couple stops to go refill my water bottle will add extra time to the run – probably takes it closer to the 3 hour mark. Running outside I would probably expect to add another 10-15 minutes yet. So say even 3:15 in a more realistic setting than the treadmill – gives me an hour to to complete the additional 6.2 miles to tie my PR for a full (from 2005). Should be interesting as I tend to go faster than training in an actual race (as most do) but I will also be doing the half the day before so my legs might not have it to do the higher speed. New PR is still possible but is going to take focus!
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