13 very humid miles on the C&O Trail

I pushed out 13 miles very early this morning on the C&O Trail.  My original goal had been 12, but as usual, I talked myself into  another 1/2 mile past the turn-around so that I could post 13 miles.  It's so easy to do... after doing 6 miles, another 1/2 mile is nothing.  The hard part is that I then have 6.5 miles back to the truck, but since subconsciously I know that I'm on my way back, it somehow seems easy.

The great news is that I was able to turn the run into a nice negative split (the last half of my run was faster than the first), and the best news is that I ran the 13th mile at a nice 7:30min/mile pace!

The humidy was a very thick 95% even at 6:30AM.  I was careful to be sure to consistently be sipping fluids (I had brought along my camelback - filled it about a 1/3 with gatorade, froze it overnight, and then filled it with a bit more gatorade and the rest with water).  I was probably sipping fluids every 1/2 mile or so, perhaps even more often than that. It was so humid that by the time I was done my clothes were dripping wet.

This picture is around mile 2 I think...  I came across a couple of deer and they stayed just ahead of me.  You can just see one of them in the path.  The other is to the left of the path.

Somewhere around mile 9 or 10 I became aware of someone pacing behind me.  I figured that he would simply be passing me at any moment, but he never did.  I was trying to maintain a constant pace but he seemed content to draft behind me, so I eventually eased up a bit and he wound up finally coming abreast of me.  By this point we were around my mile 11 or so, and I was hoping that I could get him to run with me since I was  becoming fatigued and perhaps a bit of conversation would help me finish strong. But unfortunately he was at the end of his run and that was that.  He did however thank me for setting his pace.

So I was left to my own devices to finish - which is fine.  I'm going to run a marathon, and it's going to be me and me alone that runs the distance. I'm not sure why, but when I got to mile 12 I felt kind of surprised. My legs were feeling really tired and I was ready to be done, but of course I still had to get to my truck. In a way I was just thinking that the sooner I got to the parking lot, the better; so the faster that I could run the sooner I'd be done.  I didn't really feel like I was running a sub-8 pace, but obviously I was. Net-net, it was a great run.

Post run, I made sure to walk for a good bit to shake out the lactic acid build up, did a protein shake as soon as I got home, took my dog for a 2 mile walk, and then finally enjoyed a nice ice-bath (just lovely!).  It is evening right now, and even though my legs are a little stiff if I sit for too long, my legs actually feel pretty good!  So like I said, it was a good run!