Turning the Corner and Facing the Beast

Yesterday I told my Sole Sisters that I felt I had turned a corner in my training. I had a 4 mile pace run on the schedule. My legs were still dead from my 10 mile pace run on Friday and my 20 mile long run on Saturday but I made myself do it and pulled it out!

Mile 1 - 8:30
Mile 2 - 8:35
Mile 3 - 8:39
Mile 4 - 8:32

Overall, it was SO much harder than Friday but I kept my head and made my splits. SO HAPPY!!

I had to do my pace run yesterday because I went to Louisville today to face my "beast" - the hill in the middle of my marathon. This is the elevation chart from the Derby Festival Marathon website...

 

 

That hill in the middle of the race is in Iroquois Park - the highest point in Louisville. You enter the park around mile 11.5 and exit it around mile 15. I feel like if I can make it through the park then I might make my time.

 

Anyhoos... I had a long day as things didn't exactly go as planned.

 

Since G's room is currently non-existent, she is sleeping on the couch. She got cold in the middle of the night and crawled in bed with me and Clark. Belle sleeps with us. Belle and Stella are now co-existing in harmony so Stella likes to sleep with us too. So now we have me, Clark, G, the dog and the cat all in bed together. Clark got up at 6 am to use the bathroom and then declared there were too many people in "his bed." I was going to get up at 6:30 am anyway to leave at 7 am for Louisville so I got up and went to the couch. G followed me and went to the other couch. Stella followed me and curled up on my chest. I couldn't wake a sleeping cat that was snoozing so comfortably on my chest so we all slept til, um, 9 am.

 

I finally got on the road a little after 10 am. Then I hit construction on the highway. Grrrr... It took me over 3 hours to get to Louisville.

 

I got to Iroquois Park and started driving the course. That put me in full on freak out mode. The beast of a hill was much more than just a "hill." It looked like a small mountain. It was steep enough that there were switchbacks.

 



I parked the car and started breathing again. One foot in front of the other...

The first big hill was 0.5 miles long then there was a downhill. Phew... then another hill, about 0.2 miles long, then a little downhill, then another 0.5 mile long hill, another downhill, small hill, downhill, then big 0.5 mile hill followed by a long downhill and then rolling hills til the park exit. So... three big 0.5 mile long hills and two smaller 0.2 mile hills, then some rolling hills to the exit.

Some of the switchbacks were so severe that you could almost run a straight line if you ran the angles, however the camber of the road was also so steep that it was easier to run in the middle of the road where the camber wasn't so steep.

I did this course 3 times. This is what the elevation looked like on my Garmin...

I was ready to die.

So I froze on my long run Saturday. This is what it looked like after my run today...

I was so hot I felt like my head was going to blow up.

It was a beautiful day. However, note to self... do not wait until almost 2 pm to start running 12 miles on a warm day!

So, I've faced the beast. I'm a little scared. OK, I'm more than a little scared. I don't know if I can handle these hills halfway through a marathon. Maybe I should have picked a different race. Well, too late now. I just need to stick to that 3:50 pace runner like the original plan. I may try to get down to Louisville one more time next week... earlier in the day!