Sunday Long Run Number 7

Week Number 7 was much cooler than last week, and we only had to run 14.6 miles!

I was traveling last week so I only managed to get in one 4.34 mile run along the water front in Baltimore. I definitely need to be more diligent with my training while traveling. On Friday I had planned to do another water front run but I was exhausted from a busy week of long days.

We had a pretty good sized crew of probably 30 people or so. It looked like more than half of the runners ran the short course of 7.1 miles. One person ran our Tuesday night Club Run route of about 6 miles. It’s all good.

The map below says week 4 but we switched things up a bit this year.

This week we ran down Main Street and took a left onto Melrose Street and then a left onto the Fellsway, left onto Tremont Street and then a left onto Lake Street to Emerson back out to Main Street. A big loop around Ell Pond.

From Main we took a left onto The Fellsway and we were off.

Around 3.5 miles we hits the Fellsway Hills. I was running with Don Keren and told him we should take it easy up the hill. Our first mile had been 9.13 and this was just a training run. On top of that Don had climbed another 4,000 footer in New Hampshire on Saturday.

Just like last week we were running with Jessi Marquardt who was taking it “easy” this week. We traded places with her for most of the run. And ran with her quite a bit also.

After the Fellsway Hills we took a right onto Highland and went up that hill to our first water stop. It was beginning to feel hot and I was glad to be wearing a singlet.

From Highland we took a left onto Elm Street and got to run down this hill this week. Then we ran the back side of Spot Pond and saw Tom Gorman at our second water stop just off of South Street.

Training runs are a good time to experiment with new things. This week I tried out a Saltstick caplet. Each one has 215mg of Sodium and other electrolytes and vitamins. At our water stop I took one caplet and two Hyland Leg Cramps tablets.

My next marathon is going to be hot, so I wanted to see how my gut would react to taking basically a salt tab. Everything seemed fine for the entire run. I use the other two next week for our 18.1 mile run.

We were about 8.5 miles into the run and with less than six miles to go I felt pretty good. It’s amazing how much easier it is to run in cooler weather!

From here we continued on Pond Street which turned into Highland Avenue. Just down from the traffic rotary near Flynn Rink we had our last water stop at about 10.5 miles.

I still felt okay but knew if I stopped for too long my muscles would tighten up. Don was still talking as I decided to head out. Before I got to East Border Road Don caught up.

As we chugged up the Fellsway East hills again we had a good conversation about all the issues in the news, particularly discrimination. I wont go into the details but it’s amazing we had the breath to carry on a conversation like that!

We ended up cutting the run short and went down West Wyoming. I’m still ramping up my miles and Don had been hiking the day before.

As I increase my miles I’m trying to avoid aggravating my little aches and pains into big aches and pains. There’s still four months until my marathon.

Next week, 18 miles!

Run well my Friends!

Andy