A 22K Medium Long Run

Last night was my company Christmas party, first a lot of long drawn out speeches by various company management, a huge buffet meal for 400+ people, and finally music was provided by a DJ for those who wanted to hang around and get bombed and/or dance the night away. I packed up and headed home shortly before 10 p.m., right before the DJ was scheduled to begin. In any case the meal was fabulous, I overstuffed like everyone else and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

This morning I was up at 5:30 a.m. and on the road by 6:15 for a medium long run. My goal was a 16-20K (10-12M) run, easy tempo, just to work my still full stomach off a little. I left my CamelBak home, figuring I would not need to drink on the way.

Anyway it was a beautiful morning, clear sky, fresh air, not too cold (43C/37F) and a full moon to light my way. I decided to avoid the asphalt trails as much as possible to day, so first headed over a 4K trail that loops around a group of fields on the edge of town, then back to my normal trail that I run a couple times a week. Once I was on this trail I ran on for about 6 more kilometers than turned off and on to a road leading to the next town, Graben. This part of the run was about 6K over open fields and a couple overpasses. The wind picked up pretty good through this section, glad I wore a windbreaker.

At the end of this part of the trail it was a short 2K home, but I felt good so took another loop through the woods over the Graben running clubs trails, then headed home. This morning was one of those days where I probably could have easily ran another 10K, but I was getting pretty thirsty so thought I should head back before I get dehydrated.

In any case I ended up running for 2:17:02, or probably around 22K/14M. Another good run, an easy long run pace and more importantly I burned up some of those mega-calories that took in last night. Have a great weekend!