This 20, 22 or 24 mile long run has become famous, or maybe better said infamous. I planned to complete 22 miles. This is the last long run before tapering. When I woke up it was about 80 degress and the relative humdity was 90%. This was not good. Originally this run was from the RunTex store at Gateway Plaza to another RunTex store downtown on Riverside. Then it was only about 12-15 miles. However, over the years it’s morph’ed into one of the most difficult long runs. The reason is that now after completing about 16 miles it heads into the south Austin hills. These are not especially big hills, but by that time you’re beat and the hills just make it impossible (at least for me that is). One time in the past it was raining which made me walk (this was several years ago) and another my ankle started to hurt so I cut it short (this was last January). So today was no different. At mile 16 I started to walk the hills. I had nothing left in my muscles. I could barely move my legs because they were so stiff and full of cr*p. I finally arrived at the mile 18 water stop and had to make a decision, go left for 20 or right for 22 or 24. I sat on the curb near the water stop for a minute and thought. Finally I decided to go left – do only 20 and back down from my plan. For a while after that I slogged away running and finally when I got back on the Town Lake trail I had no more juice. I was kaput. I walked the last mile back to RunTex. I was so out of it or depressed I never stopped my watch or heartrate monitor when I got to RunTex. Also luckily there was a nice runner named Debbie who gave me a ride back to my car at RunTex Gateway. Thanks Debbie!
P.S. The ankle held up OK today and wasn’t a nuisance, but there was so much else going on that it might have been drowned out by the sheer physical implosion that was my running today.
