Midnight Run in the Rain

I have really caught the running/marathoning bug. In August I ran my first double, then trained for my first 50 miler this month at Autumn Leaves. So what's next? I want to try to do Where's Waldo 100k in August 2008, but also would like to run the Pacific Rim 24 hour in March. My friend Tim Lawson (Maniac #409) is running the Ultracentric 24 hour race today. He has motivated me to look toward my goal.

I figure with just four months to go I should start preparing for it. So each month I plan to do something. This month I'm starting by getting used to staying up late and running in the middle of the night. So this morning, I went down to a wonderful park less than a quarter of a mile from my house, where there is a paved one mile loop. Since Pacific Rim will be a one mile loop, this is perfect preparation. So here's my report:

I started out by packing some aid. I put a plastic bag with water, fruit and some dry socks and put it under a picnic table. It had been raining all day long on Friday, so I was getting ready to run in the rain. I had my reflective vest and my flashlight and was ready to go.

On Monday at the Portland Running Company group run, I had won a free heart rate monitor. This is just a wonderful "toy" for me. It gives me even more statistics to track in my running. I had it on and was ready to go.

I first told myself that I wanted to run at least 20 miles. I had set for myself a limit of four hours. After having worked from 11am until 8pm. I wanted to get in a good four hours and call it a day. I had been up since 7am so I was looking at 21 hours at 4am. So I thought to myself if I run 20-24 miles I'll be happy. My new heart rate monitor holds up to 27 laps, so I really didn't want to do any more then that. The loop around the lake is 0.9853 miles. Here is a map. I figured 27 laps would be 26.6 miles (just over a marathon), that was my limit.

When I started, it was dry. But not for long, that only lasted about 3-4 loops. Then it started with a light rain and got worse. Fortunately, the heavy rain didn't start until 3am. But a lot of light rain adds up. The temperature was nice at 48°.

I was all ready for the dark, but quickly found that The street lights and house lights added enough light for me. I rarely used my LED flashlight and was just able to run. It was interesting to see few people walking there dogs in the first hour. After that I saw only one person, he was a teenage boy who was under the covered area. It looked like he may have been locked out of his house or something. He fell asleep on the picnic tables.

I started out in a nice pace in the 8:40's. I was just cruising, and was enjoying the night. When I got to lap 13, I felt like I needed some liquids and a little something to eat. So I stopped and drank some Gleukos and had a few Shot Bloks. By this time it was about 1:54am. I was on track to get at least 26 laps.

I then kept going, after lap #15, I was feeling like I wanted to slow down, but something inside me wanted to keep going. I tried to keep it up until lap 20, which I figured would be at 3am. Then I would slow down the last hour and finish with 25-26 laps. So I did. I ran 20 laps (19.71 miles) in 2:58:30. This meant I had about an hour to run 5-6 more laps. I keep going, but was slowing. I was running about 9:30's those last 6 laps. I finished at 3:58am, with 26 laps (or 25.62 miles). I was happy to get the mileage in and was so happy to go home and get dry.

Next month, Tim and I plan to run on Dec 22, round this some lake. We will be running for nine hours in what I like to call the Winter Solstice run. We will run from sunrise to sunset on the shortest day of the year. I look forward to it. But before that I have a double in Seattle next weekend, and the Christmas Marathon (Dec 16).

Happy Running!

If you would like to look at my splits, here is the statistics. [PDF]