Week 11/12 (of 20) -- 16 Miles at Lake Merced

(Aug 11th - 24th, 2008)

I was visiting my family in New Jersey for the first week and a half of this time. I made sure to pack to running shoes, though, and I had every intention of continuing my training while I was in NJ (I had even asked my mentor to email me the track workout so I could do it on my own!). But as most of us know, even the best laid plans sometimes don't work out. Running in NJ was strange and uncomfortable. Yes, I tried it. I went running through my mom's neighborhood once, for about 3 miles. That's how far I was able to go before her nice little neighborhood ran into a very busy freeway. The air also felt thicker, more humid maybe? Or maybe I was just looking for an excuse not to run...

In any case, I ran once in the whole week and a half I was visiting my family, and when I returned to CA, I was scheduled to run 16 miles! I was nervous that it would be really hard since I had only run once since the last long run. But, it was easier than I thought it would be. In all honesty, I think taking the week and a half off actually allowed my knee to heal a bit, which was a good thing. I was having problems with on again, off again pain in my left knee for some time, but it didn't hurt at all during the 16 mile run. And shortly thereafter, I bought a strap for my knee, and I haven't had any problems since. Yay!

This run was a 'preview' of the last half of the Nike Women's Marathon course, so I was really excited to run it, but also a bit nervous because I was worried I had taken too much time off. Actually though, it was really a pleasant run for about the first 13 miles. Then there was a small-ish hill that seemed like the Himalayas, and that's about where my entire body started to hurt. (It turns out that we circle the lake in the other direction during the race, so we'll actually be going down that hill, instead of up... although, in reality it's not nearly as big as it seemed at the time!) The great thing about this run is that it was cool and foggy the whole time -- fabulous SF running weather! The one downside I noticed is that the part of the course that runs from Golden Gate park toward Lake Merced is really windy and heading south, you're running into the wind, which just sucks. For this run, we started at Lake Merced and ran to Golden Gate park and back, so going into the wind was near the end of the run, whereas during the race it'll be opposite. So, I think as long as I'm mentally prepared for that section and realize that heading back toward GG park for the finish is with the wind, I should do ok. :-)