Long Run
Set out to go 20 today. Have come close a few times, but have not done a bona fide 20 miler all year.
Plan was to combine this route, which I've run a few times before with a route that takes me down to Chester and then back. This gives me a chance to explore, as all I've ever seen of Chester has been out of a car window driving down I-95.
I figured unexplored territory would make the ass end of this long run a bit more interesting. Instead I missed a turn and a planned 20-miler turned out to be 22.5 after I finally came to the realization, on hitting the Commodore Barry Bridge, that I better turn around. The back 11 looked like this (in combining the two routes I have linked you take about a mile out of the first loop that goes down 420).
So I topped Ian in time spent on my feet, although he beat me in mileage. I take Long Slow Distance to heart, starting off at about a 10 minute pace, getting it down to sub 9 by the time I finally pop out at the other end of Tinicum, and I'd be surprised if I ever came under 8-minute pace for any of the run. Its the way I train, I think the value of these runs is the time you spend on your feet more than the miles covered. Its also valuable mentally. I must have been up to about 17 when I realized that I'd be doing a few extra miles, and I wasn't loving life at that minute. But the option was to keep running or be stuck in Chester. I kept running and am now stronger for it.
This part of the run was interesting. I followed Pa. Route 291 - Industrial Blvd, which takes me from Essington along the Delaware through Eddystone to Chester. Industrial Blvd is aptly named, as there are places that are still doing well, like Boeing or Exelon's Eddystone Generating Plant - which has the dubious distinction for being one of the dirtiest power generators around. Then there are the inevitable decaying hulks of factories and the like from the industrial heyday that has long since left and will likely never return. And then there is the new growth, exemplified by Harrah's Casino and Racetrack, whose entrance and sign is set against the background of the State Correctional Institution at Chester. A casino cheek to jowl with a prison in an economically depressed post-industrial city. This bit of visual irony was quite striking, but I couldn't find any pictures of this posted on the internet. I'll have to take some of my own pics next time.
All in all, the residential parts of Chester I went through were not as dilapidated as I expected. By then I also just wanted to get the run done. Final result was, as I said, 22.5 miles in 3:13:48.
Came back to an omelette brunch that couldn't be beat.
Plan was to combine this route, which I've run a few times before with a route that takes me down to Chester and then back. This gives me a chance to explore, as all I've ever seen of Chester has been out of a car window driving down I-95.
I figured unexplored territory would make the ass end of this long run a bit more interesting. Instead I missed a turn and a planned 20-miler turned out to be 22.5 after I finally came to the realization, on hitting the Commodore Barry Bridge, that I better turn around. The back 11 looked like this (in combining the two routes I have linked you take about a mile out of the first loop that goes down 420).
So I topped Ian in time spent on my feet, although he beat me in mileage. I take Long Slow Distance to heart, starting off at about a 10 minute pace, getting it down to sub 9 by the time I finally pop out at the other end of Tinicum, and I'd be surprised if I ever came under 8-minute pace for any of the run. Its the way I train, I think the value of these runs is the time you spend on your feet more than the miles covered. Its also valuable mentally. I must have been up to about 17 when I realized that I'd be doing a few extra miles, and I wasn't loving life at that minute. But the option was to keep running or be stuck in Chester. I kept running and am now stronger for it.
This part of the run was interesting. I followed Pa. Route 291 - Industrial Blvd, which takes me from Essington along the Delaware through Eddystone to Chester. Industrial Blvd is aptly named, as there are places that are still doing well, like Boeing or Exelon's Eddystone Generating Plant - which has the dubious distinction for being one of the dirtiest power generators around. Then there are the inevitable decaying hulks of factories and the like from the industrial heyday that has long since left and will likely never return. And then there is the new growth, exemplified by Harrah's Casino and Racetrack, whose entrance and sign is set against the background of the State Correctional Institution at Chester. A casino cheek to jowl with a prison in an economically depressed post-industrial city. This bit of visual irony was quite striking, but I couldn't find any pictures of this posted on the internet. I'll have to take some of my own pics next time.
All in all, the residential parts of Chester I went through were not as dilapidated as I expected. By then I also just wanted to get the run done. Final result was, as I said, 22.5 miles in 3:13:48.
Came back to an omelette brunch that couldn't be beat.
posted by seebo | 5:24 PM
1 Comments:
How does doing 22 miler slowly than if you did it at a quicker base pace? I'm assuming you're less beat-up the morning after? I know people who do the same thing and treat the LR as long "easy" day...
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