Yesterday was the day of the 18 mile run. I had been dreading this for a while, especially after feeling so terrible running 16 miles...but the marathon is a month away and it's go-time.
I bought a bunch of pre-run "fuel" in the hopes that I'd avoid hitting the wall this time around. I bought Gatorade "Fit" bites, which turned out to be for non-endurance activities and not exactly ideal for workouts over 2 hours long. I ate two of those anyway as well as a pouch of Jelly Belly Sport Beans and pounded a bunch of Gatorade. I also decided that instead of just water, I'd put Gatorade in my hydration belt in the hopes that my electrolytes, etc would stay up.
It was extraordinarily windy yesterday and I decided not to run along the beach. I've been getting really frustrated with running the strand for a few reasons:
1) it's boring
2) it's completely flat which isn't exactly helping me for Big Sur
3) it gets super congested in areas like Venice/Manhattan Beach
4) the Manhattan Beach area splits into a bike path and a ped path. On the weekends when I'm doing my long runs, unless I go at 6am, this area is covered with walkers, strollers, kids, dogs, and just a ton of people in general. AND it smells like dog poop which is not really what you wanna be gasping in at mile 12.
5) it's supposed to be a bike path only and some cyclists that assume the path is their personal velodrome like to blaze past you as close as possible to remind you that you're not supposed to be on the path
I searched around online and found out about this little trail:
It's only 7.5 miles round-trip, but I figured with the distance added on to/from my apartment, plus some spare miles somewhere I should be able to get the total up to 18 pretty easily.
I ran along Sepulveda Blvd, which was definitely the worst part of the run, and then ducked behind the Fry's Electronics to find the entrance to the trail. It was secluded and laden with trees which brought some much needed shade at 3 in the afternoon. The trail winds through Manhattan Beach all the way down to the Hermosa/Redondo border. The trail is covered in wood chips which was a nice change from cement. There were plenty of flowers and blooming trees that provided lovely scenery and some nice aromas as I cruised down the trail.
What I did not realize was that the trail goes downhill the entire way to Redondo Beach which means by mile 8ish I have to turn around and go uphill...straight into headwinds.
The run back home was pretty gnarly to be totally honest. My knee started hurting around mile 10 and the winds were brutal. Even the trees didn't protect me from the wind as it seemed to be blowing straight down the corridor of the running trail. I felt slight relief once I was back on Sepulveda because I knew the run was nearly finished, but the winds were even worse once I was out in the open.
Eventually I made it back to my apartment and didn't feel like going to sleep. I never felt like I hit "the wall" like I did on the previous long run which was nice. I think I'll stick to the sport beans when I run the marathon :) I stretched for a long time, showered, and stretched again. Today I barely feel sore which is awesome. Even my bad knee seems to be holding up! Four more weeks to go!!!!
Yesterday's stats:
18 miles
2:31:46
~8:33 min/mi
249 ft elevation gain
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