Day Nineteen: The Longest Yard

Today just seemed like one of those days where i felt my training has been strong, but i haven't had any real hard tests yet.. until today.  The goal for the day is to test out the legs and run as far as i can.  But before I do this, i decided it would be good to consult Bart Yasso, Greg McMillan, Alberto Salazar, Steve Prefontaine, and my ole coach from college. 

Unfortunately, i was unable to reach any of these people.  So i decided  to review whatever training plans they had available on the internets, for free, at 7:00 PM, on a monday night, in the year 2011.  Upon reviewing their logs, i was unable to find any training plans for super advanced future gold medal marathoners.  All these people kept posting was "rest day", "recovery day", "Don't train too hard", "injuries", "sleep", "Nutrition", etal...  Blah!  Blah!  Blah!  I can understand if i were a SLOW runner and hoping to finish a 5k, these would be useful to me.  But I am not that person.  God made me fast so i decided to make modifications.   One of the plans suggested a run of 26.2 miles on a day called "Race Day".  There was very little mileage scheduled before it.  How stupid.  If you are training for a marathon, you should train hard.  Why would he schedule these days off?  Anyways, i figure if a begginner is gonna run 26 miles, then i will go twice that distance.

Well the goal was to go 52 miles at a 5:50 pace (i figure i'll cut the clip down a bit to account for more miles)... I was gonna go out as far as i could and then turn around.  I think once i reach chicago city limits, that would be a solid turnaround point.  I figure a great path to get there would be I-90 at around 5:30 PM.  So i set off from my apartment and began the run... I learned from yesterday that it is much warmer out (thanks weather channel) and that some compression socks, shorts, shirt, arm sleeves, neck guard, ear covers, eye brow holder and hat would do me just fine.

The first mile was a breeze as i reached the highway at a 5:30 clip.  A little too fast but things went fine enough.. Traffic was a little heavy and people were kind of being JERKS honking at me so i decided running in the median wasn't the best option.  I immediately took to the shoulder of the road.  This seemed to be ok, as most cars weren't even moving.  In fact the next five miles flew by as not one car moved even an inch forward during that time..  I looked at my watch and we were at a 5:41 clip.  Whew!  I was happy to be through six miles, only 46 to go... I was running pretty smoothly when suddenly someone opened up their door.  I am not sure if you've ever been on I-90 before but it knocked me from the median to hanging off the ledge.  Some man walked out and asked me what i was doing?  When i got up... he said something very inspiring "Are you some kind of erotic superhero?  why is your clothing so tight?"  Wow.   this guy was amazing, the first SLOW person to recognize that i am beyond human and am actually the fastest person in the world.  Well i bid him adieu and trudged along continuing this long run....

Well i hit mile sixteen and hit the Cumberland toll booths at a 5:55 clip.  Oh shit!  I forgot change to pay for the tolls.. how could i forget this?  Darn!  So i ran up to the toll booth operator and pointed to my garmin watch.  I explained that my GPS watch was still going (because only SLOW people pause it) and that i just needed an envelope so i could mail in my toll change when i return home.  I explained that the United States of America needed me to complete this run so she needed to let me pass.  She explained that only cars go through here.  She said i was a crazy superhero freaky dude and then called security.  Well, i thought i needed some speed work so i decided to sprint... There were about five guys chasing me so i started weaving in and out of traffic.  Like in the movie Die Hard, i saw each security guard, one by one fall down or get hit by an oncoming vehicle.  Whew!  Back to the long run..  I felt good being back on foot.  Except the stoppage lead to my watch showing at average clip of 6:30 at mile 20.  Well, it was time to pick things up.

I decided to do a little tempo run to make up the mileage...The strategy seemed to work as i was back to an average clip of 6:10 by mile 26 except i was in absolute pain at this point.. But no worries, i brought gel packs.  I ate three packages and continued on my way.  Flip, Flop.  Flip, Flop.  My stomach ache was starting to build up... It must have been the coca-cola classic i drank in the third grade.  As a result of this, my legs were aching too.  But i mustered up the courage to get past mile 27, but unfortunately my clip fell to around 6:11.  Ugh!  It was getting colder out too.  I knew this because my breathing was starting to increase... but i kept stepping, prodding forward.  But this weakness kept occuring.  Maybe someone hexed me.  So i continued running and hit mile 28 at a clip of 6:20.  My body was hurting from that coca-cola so i decided that the best remedy would be more gel packs.  Obviously they got me this far, so they would help me finish too....

I got about three more miles in, when i felt kind of sick.  Then all of a sudden the gel pack i took was immediately expunged from my body at a rather quick velocity...  I felt like i wanted to nap... so i decided that maybe fifteen minutes would be good.  There was an abandoned Chevy aveo left unlocked so i took shelter in there.  Six hours later, i woke up in the back of a police car.  How could this be?  I wasn't sure where we were but it was very dark out.

I asked the policeman where we were going and he said "Aha, if it isn't the Green Dipshit!  Welcome back to wakey land.. haha" what was this.. where was this wakey land.  Finally, we arrived at the Chicago Police Station.  I told them what happened and they decided not to press charges.  I called my mother and she came by to pick me up.  i got home around 5:00 AM.  I looked at my garmin watch and it was still going.  Fail.  Overall, i was only able to 31.35 miles in.  Very weak today, i will have to improve on this if i am going to win.  Today was very weak indeed.