Today intended on running further than I did. But I think I pushed a little too hard while doing hills.
I had planned on running anywhere from 45-60 km today. I suppose I should have chosen to do mostly flat running for distance like that. Parked my car by the Greenway and started down the trail. The first two km were along the greenway on gravel/dirt and were flat. Because I wanted to run a long distance I was trying to maintain a slower than normal pace (6:00 min/km at most) but I'm not so good at this and ended up doing 5:00 min/km.
After that I hit the road and started my uphill climb. 12 km up paved rd. There were a couple spots were it flattened out for 200 metres at the most. Overall elevation change of 550 metres over the 12 km. I wanted to try and maintain a nice slow pace of a minimum of 7:20 min/km. But instead I ran this section at an average of 6:13 min/km.
I wanted to run up to the trestles, but the forest service road that led to them had far too much ice and snow on it to be comfortable to run uphill on. I made it a km before giving up and heading back down. Came back down a 6 km stretch of the road I had just ran up in 36 minutes (dropped 300 metres elevation). I only dropped my pace by 13 seconds / km coming back down. So strange. My calf muscles started to feel it here.
Rather than doing the smart thing and continuing down the road and heading back to my car the easy way when I could tell my calves were starting to feel it, I decided to do some more uphills. 3 km uphill along a road (18 min, 200 metres elevation change) and I was at Scenic Canyon Regional Park.
Scenic Canyon Regional Park is so nice. The last section (which is where I usually start) has hills up and down for 5 km. I started out still feeling okay here. It had snowed two days ago, and rained the day after that so the trails were rather muddy. And going up the hills on mud was no good, so I started walking up the hills. And then my calves started to scream at me. Did the 7 km section of the Park in 45 minutes. Stopped for awhile at the parking lot to stretch. And I just couldn't get going again.
I walked for 2 km, then ran for 2 more, then walked the last km to my car. 34 km total today. I think I found out how many hills I can comfortably run at that pace. I don't know how to slow down. For the last 5 years of running my goals have all been directed at going faster and faster. Now, I'm training for an ultra marathon and the death race and I want to slow it down. If I were to run the death race at the pace I ran today I would finish in 12 hours. Which is just incredibly impossible. So I really find myself unsure of where to slow down. Everywhere? Or just while going up hills?
Lesson learned today: I need to slow down going up hills if I want to be able to comfortably run 50 k + runs.
"The God’s will not do for man, what a man must do for himself."
Keep on running.
Nazzer
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