Train your brain in the rain

Yesterday I researched the details of the next race, the Desert Half Ironman (10 days till my first half ironman, holy crap!) and noticed that the run is a double loop…not exactly appealing and not something I've done. So I figured I better practice something similar to wrap my head around running past the finish line and being only be halfway done. So…I decided to train my brain by doing a double Lake Union today for my 15-mile run. I added a 3-mile out-and-back on Boyer during the first loop to get the right mileage and to make the second loop shorter. Of course, it would have been nice to be done when I got to my car at Gasworks after the first lap, but it wasn't TOO awful (of course there was no announcer yelling out the fast guys' finishing times as I headed out for the second loop like there will be at the race, but it's hard to similate that part). The good part of the plan was that the car was an aid station so I swapped fuel bottles, and the bathroom at Gasworks was conveniently placed, too.

It was raining for about the first half of the run and on the way to Gasworks, I was already thinking that today’s theme was “train my brain in the rain.” Unfortunately, this phrase reminded me of the lyrics to the Blondie song “Rapture,” a bad early 80's rap song that my friend, Beth Courter, and I memorized in 9th grade (it seemed so essential at the time). So the memory chip was triggered…and triggered…and triggered. And “the man from mars was eating cars…and now he only eats guitars…” Good god, that song is stupid. By the 4th mile I was considering whether I should try to pull up a Christmas song from memory instead (“Winter Wonderland” is one that often hits repeat in a similar way in my head on December runs…), as “train the brain” of course rhymes with “insane,” and it was becoming a possibility. But nothing else worked so I just stuck with Blondie and toughed it out. By halfway through, it was totally sunny and by the time I was done, it was cloudy again. I guess that’s what happens when you run around for half the day in circles; several weather patterns can pass through and it almost seems like several days have passed. It's now totally rainy again.

The H triplets had a team meeting somewhere in the middle and, again, elected the Heel as captain (hip was taped and shut up for about half the run, and hamstring was just regularly but not excessively annoying). I walked a mile after I hit the 15 mile mark with a banana and Nuun for recovery, stretched after the mile walk, and called it good. I wasn’t by the lake this week to do the cold dip for my legs, but I have a massage tonight, so that should help the recovery.

I hit my lap timer at the 13.1 mile mark to help with my race plan for next week and get a good guess of what I can do for the run.

Summary:
15 miles (9 minute run/1 minute walk routine throughout)
2:37:59
Avg HR = 135
Avg pace = 10:32