18 miles

I wouldn't want to go so far as to say it was 18 miles of bliss, but it was 18 miles of really not so bad. I had somewhat been dreading this run, but mainly because of the time commitment with it being scheduled during the week. I've been struggling to get up early, and this would have had to be ridiculously early to squeeze it all in before work (sudden flashback to training for Florida and getting up at 4 to do a 17 mile run before work). I was also considering splitting it up as I did the previous week - half in the AM, half in the PM. But I knew mentally that I needed to do it all at once. I did have the time after work, and it might end up being my last full long run. But it's a lot to do after work.

My plan was to leave work early - 4:30, which is generally when I've been leaving on Thursday's in order to get a longer ride in. This really wouldn't be much different. Except that I work was crazy and it was impossible to leave. I finally managed to escape and was able to start slightly off schedule at 4:55. I feel like I've been kind of pushing it with the dogs...someone comes to let them out at lunch, which means that I don't have to rush home after work. Initially I would try to get home by 6:30, then 7, then 7:30, and then I started getting close to 8. I just have this fear that they'll get so hungry that they'll start barking. I know it's absurd because most likely they are sleeping the entire time. But I know how they act when I'm home and it's dinner time - it's like a mad frenzy. Why would they do this when I'm not there? They wouldn't. But I still think they might. Anyhow, I figured I'd had to cut the run a little short in order to make it home by 8 since I sort of figured it would take 3 hours. But 16 or 17 would also be close enough.

I started out on the bike path by work and headed over to the Bobolink. A few miles into my run, I started thinking about the mile repeats I had to do. I was just going to go out and back, assuming that I didn't run out of road, but then had a great idea to do the mile repeats on the same stretch of road I did them on about a month ago during another long run. So I start recalculating where I would have to turn around. And then I had another great idea - why don't I run home rather than go back to work. If I did that, the time I would have lost heading back to work and then driving home, I could make up for during the run home - meaning I'd be able to get in the entire 18. I started recalculating again to try and figure out now where I'd need to turn around. It's always a bad idea to try and do math in the middle of a workout. It never adds up. I then started wondering if it was a good idea to leave my wallet and keys in the car overnight. Normally it wouldn't have concerned me since I'm no longer in DC, but we did have a break-in last summer and that was during the day. It was probably safer to just go grab them. Recalculating again to factor in running back to work. It essentially meant that I had to turn around as soon as I decided that I was going to do this new plan. It actually turned out to be a good thing because then I was able to refill water. And I was quizzed by a co-worker who turned mom on me ('does Matt know you're doing this?' (no), 'do you have your phone?' (yes),'do you have a headlamp?' (no, this was sort of spur of the moment and I still have probably 90 minutes of daylight.),'I'm calling you at 8. if you're not home, I'm calling the Lafayette police' (give me until 8:15 since the last 5 or so miles are all uphill). And then I was off...

Of the last 5.5 miles, roughly 4 are uphill. A long slow slog up Baseline...and it actually wasn't too bad. Better than riding it. For a Z2 run, I was making pretty good time and only had one final workout math miscalculation. I had just under a mile to go (this part is all downhill), and I checked the time. Just under 2:45. And I thought "OMG, I can do a sub-4 hour marathon". There were only 6 miles left and even at a 10-10.5 min/mi pace, I'd still make it. I was ecstatic. With just under a half a mile to go reality kicked in...Except that I would have 8 miles to go to make it a marathon. And that would put me over 4 hours. I was bummed for a bit. And then I wasn't, having reminded myself that I had just run 18 miles, 14 of which were in Z2, 4ish of which were uphill, and all of which were 1000 times better than my previous long run of 16 miles. And I made it home by 7:50...plenty of time to spare.