11 Miles Alone, 3 With the Group

I had planned to get out of bed at 5am, eat some breakfast, fiddle around, and then leave the house at 6:15 to get down to Ithaca for the group training session. But Nora wanted to nurse until 5:30, I tried to clean up the kitchen so Braman wouldn't have to deal with a huge mess when he was trying to get the kids breakfast before Larsson's violin lesson, and I still needed to eat oatmeal and gather all my things. So I didn't end up leaving the house until 6:30.

Even then, I only had time to put sandals on and had to change into my sneakers at two different red lights on the way. I also couldn't find the BodyGlide (I hadn't used it since Philadelphia and we're not the most complete unpackers) so grabbed a tube of Aquaphor as I was going out the door and smeared that under the neckline of my sports bra as I drove, hoping it would be enough to prevent the chafing that has left a scar on my chest.

As a result, I arrived at the meeting spot five minutes late at 7:05 to find that the team had already left without me.

Another group that meets at the same spot to train together told me that I had just missed them and that if I cut a little bit off the start of the route, I could probably catch up with them. But I am stubborn and decided that I would run the route from start to finish by myself.

I wouldn't have minded so much except one of the coaches and I had emailed back and forth and I had told her I was coming. I don't remember the group being particularly punctual before and thought that they would have waited a few extra minutes for someone they were expecting but evidently not. I was told later that I should really get there 10 minutes early and that they are trying to train us to show up on time since the marathon won't wait five minutes for latecomers. Yeah, OK.

So I ran three miles to the first water stop. Drank some Gatorade, retied my right shoe which seemed loose and started running again. I ran to what I knew was the 5-mile point. Sometimes there is water there but not then. I kept running. I thought there would be water maybe a mile or so down the road but I didn't see anything. (I found out later it was well-hidden in some brush at mile six.)

The group likes to run more than halfway on the way out so that they can cut off the beginning part of the route on the way back. A small psychological benefit. But I was getting tired of running without knowing where the water was so I decided that I would run for an hour and 25 minutes out and then I would turn around. This would be about 7 miles out and so I would do exactly the same route on the way back.

At 1:25 on my watch I did a u-turn in the road and headed on back. At about mile 10 1/2, I was overtaken by some people in the group, including the coach. She said she didn't know I was coming and that she felt bad that I had been running alone. At mile 11, we came to the original water stop so I had run 8 miles without additional fluid. I drank some more Gatorade.

Since I hadn't gone as far out as the rest of the people, I didn't cut off the end of the route like they did but kept going back the extra mile or so to make sure I ran the full 14 miles. I ran about a 1/2 mile of this by myself and then Monica, the coach, met me and we ran the last 1/2 mile or so together. I told her that she didn't have to but she said that part of her coaching obligation is to make sure that everyone finishes.

I don't mind being alone but was frustrated that I hadn't taken my mp3 player with me. I could have made some good progress on The Historian. On a positive note, I felt pretty good overall, much better than I had last Sunday when I only ran 13.1 miles. I felt fast when I was running and, more importantly, felt like I could have kept going after the 14 miles were over. I finished the 14 miles in 2:47 minutes.