The Duel Ferries Run & 90 Miles/Week June 21-27

Saturday, June 26: I turned 27 and thought what a better way than to start it with a 20 miler at duel ferries. I met a dozen GRC fellows at Edward's Ferry and we started off on the canal towards White's Ferry. I started off easy and wanted to build during this run. I was to do the full 20+ miler(20.2miles). I hung in with the pack and cruised through the first 10.1m in 1:07. We stopped to get some water/gatorade after the first loop, (I took some powerade at my car), and then proceeded to run the second half. The size was cut in half for those wanting to do 20 miles. Karl, Joe, Dickson, and Ashish all ran ahead moving at a pretty good clip while the Red Fox, Bain, and Jason Dwyer(a fellow who randomly met up with us around mile 2-3), and I drafted a bit furthur back. Red Fox said, we'll get them at the water stop. "Jesus, you guys are brutal!" said Jason. A few miles later, Jake and Jason began to pick it up. Bain and I lost a little ground and just hung in range of a solid pace. I was not going to pick up the pace anymore as I wanted this to be a consistent effort and if I felt good the last 5 miles to then pick it up. So Bain and I hung back around sub 6:00 pace or so and I felt just fine, actually, I began to feel really good. We all met up at the next water stop and regrouped. Ashish had turned around and decided to run less, and Jason would run to White's Ferry and finish up his run there(he took the ferry across). Bain and I ran just a tad slower than Karl, Jake, Joe, and Dickson, so we began to lose ground again after starting up again after the water stop. Bain told me to "go ahead" if I felt good but I declined and said I would like to keep the pace we were going for a bit longer. As we approached White's Ferry, however, I began to pull away and run faster and feel better all at the same time. The turnaround was sunny and it beat down hard on our bodies. Now to river road. I saw the four in front together not that far ahead. I focused on reeling them in. As we made a turn, I noticed the pace started to change drastically, in fact, it happened so fast, and appeared that already the four of them were separating. It looked like Jake and Joe had surged ahead with Dickson and Karl trailing. Downhill, uphill. I worked the uphills. I tried to keep them in sight. After another turn, I saw an awesome sight of 1, 2, 3, 4, runners ahead all equidistant from eachother. This was epic. We were all beating eachother up(in a good way). It looked like Joe was ahead and putting on the hammer with Jake following. Suddenly, I saw Dickson just strides ahead of me. Was I running faster? I had no idea what pace I was running. sub 6 still? 540s??? I was just running by effort and concentrated on running strong. I felt strong. I caught up to Dickson and he nodded his head that I was giving a good effort today and ran ahead. I soon saw Karl coming to me. How fast was I running?, I thought. I focused on catching Karl and did ever so slowly. The sun blared down on us. I ran with him for a bit before pushing even furthur ahead. I started to see the Red Fox but he had a pretty decent gap and it seemed he wasn't slowing down anytime soon. I could hardly see Joe as he must've really stomped on it. At the final turn, I caught up with Joe and Jake but only because they had stopped briefly. Dickson caught up to me and together we ran back to Edward's Ferry. Jake, Joe, and Dickson finished a little bit ahead as at this point my legs were saying "no more, you've done enough for today." So I shut it down with about 10 min left and just ran steady for the last part. I messed up my time as I forgot to stop my watch a couple of times but based on others' times I'm guessing I finished around 2:06(around 59min for the second 10.1). Anyhow, I was thrilled with my run and how solid I ran! Turns out all six of us ran under the old duel ferries record. Jake seems to be pretty accurate with pace so he gave me a good idea of how fast we ran. This is a great run and I'm at perfect position right now in my training. I have a solid base I have been working on and my fitness level is good. The training is paying off dramatically. I just have one goal: to train correctly and optimally peak for Chicago. I think I am on the right track. Again it's a process, like anything, to get to that next level. Total mileage this week was 90. Next week will be a little less mileage and I'll do a 5K workout next Sunday(Autism Speaks 5K) as well as a small workout during the week probably.