The Loop

We all have our favorite courses, that lay of the land that you know seemingly by heart, the one that you know the mileage, the curves, the cracks in the pavement, the traffic patterns, the chance that you will see other runners, and so on. The one that you have in your training arsenal that you can use anytime.  And most importantly, for this post, the one you know you are going to finish.  I do not have a fancy name for my course, I just call it "The Loop."

The Loop is basically a counterclockwise run encompassing four major roadways that broadly circle my street.  Depending on my exact track, starting point, and ending point, The Loop is about four miles or 6.4km.  I have set up two Strava segments on The Loop, one a 1.1-mile start to end on one of the streets, the other a short third of a mile jaunt up The Loop's steepest hill.  Explaining this course to my wife has become routine, instead of the street by street instructions I usually churn out I can now simply say "running The Loop," and my path becomes clear.

About six months ago, I had a day off from work and decided to try to take a Loop run.  While most of my running training had been on treadmills since my recovery, I did not think the loop was going to be cause for any kind of alarm.  I had completed a 10km run in Atlanta a week ago, and while my times were not exactly Olympic pace, I ended the activity with not too much discomfort.  The Atlanta run was also hotter and contained many more hills than The Loop.  So what could go wrong?

I started off with the usual warm-up run, about .8 miles through a nearby park.  It is about 1:45 in the afternoon; the thought passes through my mind that I do not usually run in the afternoon (for whatever reason), but it quickly exits my mind to be replaced by other sorts of useless concerns and metrics.  A few leg swings and side slides, and I am underway.

The segment that I referred to earlier starts about .3 miles into the run.  All along the way, I keep telling myself that time does not matter on this run, a slow segment might even be a good thing considering The Loop has not been attempted in about a year and a half.  The turn comes, the sector starts, the downhill is entered, and I start to ramp it up, albeit slightly, still telling myself to tone it down.  I also notice that traffic is much more substantial on this narrow road then when I usually tackle it in the morning.

There are three significant turns on this segment; the first is when the road finally flattens out.  My mind starts turning to final pace numbers and how this is going to look on my stats.  This should have been my first warning sign.  Call it superstition, or call it fatigue, but whenever I start to envision finishing way too early in a run, it usually does not end up well.  Today would be no exception.

My app tells me that I have reached the first-mile mark at 10:00 and that my heart rate was hovering at about 150 bpms.  One minute later, I pull up.  I am pretty much out of gas, and I have to make a decision about what to do now, continue walking and hope I can at least get in a workout, or abort and walk home.  I choose the latter.  Even though my running training is still in the opening stages, I find this to be kind of humiliating and, worse, mysterious.  Why did I bonk at such an early stage in the run when I completed a run 5 times longer only a week ago?

Six months pass, and my running sessions are sporadic, at best.  Strangely enough, this failed run seems to have spiraled me into a sort of fear of running outside.  Would every run end up like this?  Why did I fail, or maybe why didn't I know why I failed.  The next five months see my running activities always on the treadmill, with no regular rhythm.  Ordinarily, I don't mind the treadmill, but problems seem to happen when using it exclusively.

I documented my runs during our vacation to South Carolina, but still, that was the only outside running that I attempted.  My March vacation rolls around, and both my wife and I decide to get new shoes, followed by a test activity at a nearby park.  My wife tests her new shoes with a walk, I decided to take a five-mile run, which I complete with moderate difficulty.  Looks like it's time.....to try The Loop.

It is a sunny day, about forty degrees, a slight breeze out of the east.  A mile warmup run goes pretty much as planned, ending up in the aforementioned park for leg kicks and sidewinders.  Feeling more than a little apprehension, I start the run and proceed out of the park.  While I am telling myself to slow down, my pace is pretty good, or at least relatively fast at about a six-minute kilometer.  I hit a left, move down a hill, and at 1k am shocked to find a 5:59 split.  My heart rate is already in the mid 140s, so I figure I will have to either slow down soon or die.

2k is about where I bonked on the previous run, and interesting enough, it is where the first real hill is situated, so I slow down the pace.  I also pass the point where I gave up last time, so a minor victory is achieved.  The hill sees my pace slow, and my heart rate increase, but I make the left turn that I did not make before, so even though my heart is thinking that I am sprinting like a twenty-year-old, my head is feeling somewhat euphoric.

The next 2k go without much incident.  The course goes downhill very slightly, and I occupy a stretch in the road's bike lane, giving me plenty of room.  My pace is slower, but I am feeling like I am going to finish, which is the primary goal on this day.  A left puts me on Main Street and sees me staring down the barrel of Cemetary Hill.

Cemetery Hill is, without a doubt, the most challenging part of The Loop.  It is only about .3 miles, but the grade often reaches 6% and towards the end of the run no less.  Feeling confident that I have made it this far, I put my head down and start to work up the hill.  After almost four minutes and a heart rate that is rising as high as the hill, I am at the top and looking forward to wrapping the run up.  I take the side roads instead of taking Main Street straight, mostly to get a little downhill time.  This is the way I usually go, so I will also get some useful analytics as to comparing this run to others.

The last 1k is surprisingly uneventful.  The kids at the school on Main Street are at recess, and the screaming helps boost me on, kind of like spectators at a race.  I hit 6k at about 38:30, surprisingly fast, but I am only thinking about finishing and calling it a success.  I turn to my street and give a little kick at the end, shutting down at 6.5k.

A finish, a finish time of 41:39, a Strava effort of 138, and five total miles.  Did I mention that all this happened on my birthday?  Yeah, baby, great present!