The "dreadmill"

Because of lingering rain from the storm spawned by hurricane Isaac, I continued my long run in the gym this morning. I'd done the first 6.5 miles of 18 in the gym last night, and planned to run half the rest indoors, and the other half outside, today.

The first leg was in the gym, though. I set my pace at under 10 for the first two miles, then increased the pace a little the rest of the way so that by the time I'd done 6.5 miles I was averaging just under 10. Pretty slow all the way.

Once I got done with the first leg, I decided that rather than wait for the rain to pass, I'd just keep going on the "dreadmill," since I only had another 5 to do. The boredom of the run was softened a bit by the book I was listening to: "Packing for Mars." because there's little chance for perspiration to evaporate when you're working out inside, I was really getting wet. My shirt and shorts were soaked. In the last 5 miles I had to stop twice to get water from the drinking fountain. The stuff was coming out of me like I was perforated.

The last 3 miles were the hardest. Not because I was tired, but because of the monotony and because I was getting very hungry. I didn't eat before I left because at that time I wasn't planning to run farther than about 6 miles. About half way through the last 5 miles I couldn't get the thought of food out of my mind.

Finally, though, it was all over and I'd done something I hadn't done for several years: run more than 10 miles on the treadmill in one session. Today it was 12.15 at an average pace of 9:55.

For the week I had 45.1 miles in 7 hours and 7 minutes (a 9:28 pace).