Long Coffee Run

View Larger Map
This week was like many of the previous weeks; 5-6 mile runs during the week with a long run on the weekend. I ran a short 5-mile recovery run (from Sunday's 20 miles) Monday night in the basement. I felt terribly week the first couple miles before I decided to run upstairs for an energy bar. I felt better almost immediately after ingesting the food and the rest of the run went swimmingly. I find myself with somewhat of a stunted appetite the day of a long run with the constant mad dashes to the refrigerator happening long run +1 day. Tuesday was my birthday (was of those uneventful near mid-30 birthdays) so I took the day off. Wednesday and Thursday were more of the same, but slower than typical mid-week runs, which felt good so I went with it. Friday I took off to hang out with a buddy who is leaving L.L.Bean for greener pastures!

Today was the big show. I was extremely fortunate enough to get the time this morning to join Ian, Emma, James, Jim Dunn, and a large group of Maine Track Club members for their weekly Saturday morning Maine Roasters Coffee run. The run started with a light drizzle and temps in the mid-30s and ended near 40 degrees, some 3 hours and 20 minutes later. The large group quickly broke into pace groups with our group of 7 (included the above mentioned group and a couple others including a neighbor of mine who I met for the first time this morning) in the front pack. The goal distance of our group fell into three categories: 16 miles, somewhere in the middle where I was all alone, and 24 for Emma, James, and Jim. The run was great with excellent conversation throughout as we toured Falmouth, Yarmouth, and Cumberland. Most of the talk was around our early season goal races; Emma focusing on her first 50 miler at the Pineland Farms Trail Challenge, James aiming for his second 10-miler at the Massanutten Mountain Trails (where I am currently 32nd on the waiting list), and Jim on a variety of gnarly trail races in Mass and NH. Throughout the entire run I was vacillating on distance, unsure of how far I wanted to go. The determining factor was the people. I had such a great time to once again be on the road (prefer trails) that I stuck it out for almost the entire run of 24 miles. I say almost because we passed the starting point of Maine Roasters Coffee at 23.68 miles and that was good enough for Jim and me, whereas James and Emma felt the need to run out and back to get their .32 miles. For me, the coffee and chocolate croissant was calling and I heeded their call!

The pace was pretty even for the entire run, averaging 8:27. There were a couple faster miles including a sub 7:00 mile as I sprinted to catch the group at mile 7 after I darted into the woods for a bio break. My average heart rate of 151 bpm was very high considering our pace, but I will write this off to an extreme lack of sleep the past week and a half as Quinn has had a cold and is getting in 4 (!) new teeth. Also of interest is that there was an elevation gain/loss of 2,310 feet during the run.

For fun,here is a satellite view of last week's 20 miler.

View Larger Map