Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Interesting training runs - July 2012

So in between #6 Lake Placid marathon and #7 San Fancisco marathon that is coming up this weekend, I've had some interesting training runs.  First, were some summer runs in the heat.  We've had some hot days here over the past couple weeks, and I mean days that topped out over 100 degrees, and that is not heat index, that's degrees.  All the news channels talked about it like it was the end of the world.  "Don't leave the house!"  Of course I took that as a personal challenge, and had to run on those days.  I set out for a 10 mile run on the 100+ degree day, and although I love a good challenge... well, it was freaking hot!  So I ran 8 that day.  We'll call it a draw.  Then recently we had a mid 90's day where the heat index was over 100.  I ran to the track and did 3x1 mile repeats at 6:40 pace, a total of 9 miles which is what I set out to do.  So I won that one.

My most interesting run came two weekends ago.  There is an event in Philly called the Back on My Feet Lone Ranger which is a 24 hour ultrarunning event.  I volunteered to be a pacer for the race, a race I did a few years ago.  It is a great event.  I was not sure what to expect as a pacer, especially because I had volunteered for the early morning hours, 2am to 6am.  When I got there they set me up with the girl who was leading the female race, Sabrina Moran.  She is the American record holder in miles run over 24 hours.  She's a machine.  Check out her blog http://notallergictoadventure.blogspot.com/
So I ran with her from 2:30am until 6am, 17 miles.  Then she continued on until the end of the 24 hours and won the race completing 139 miles.  Incredible. It was very interesting to run with her and see what she went through pushing her body to the limit.


This past weekend I was at the beach with the fam and got in two great 10 mile training runs on Saturday and Sunday, running on the beach.  I started around 5:30am each morning and ran as the sun came out.  Well it came out one of the two days, the first day was completely overcast so I couldn't really tell when it became lighter, as you can see from the below pictures, but Sunday was different.  Got to see a GREAT sunrise.  Check out the pics below



Saturday's no sun, sunrise run



 These are the pics from Sunday.  It started out also overcast, but there was a break in the clouds, right on the horizon, so I hoped that the sun would appear.




 And then it started getting brighter...

 ...and redder!
 And the waves were great too which added to the view

 until



 I also had the chance to save a puffer fish that got washed up on the beach. 


 As the red disappeared, the clouds also broke apart.

 I got some good pics of the seagulls flying through the view as well



 Love this one because of the birds





 And by the end of the run, the clouds were gone and the sun was completely up.  Awesome run.