50K in 16 Hours

This weekend I did my first back-to-back long run. On Friday at 5 p.m. I ran 20K/12.5M on the flat trails in the forest behind my town. On Saturday morning at 5:30 a.m. I ran 30K/18.5M on my hilly route in the neighboring town of Weingarten.

Friday night’s run was fairly uneventful, it was a somewhat cooler 29C/85F and not quite as humid as it has been. I ran the 20K at an easy 6:03/K (9:44/M) pace.

On Saturday morning it was only 20C/68F when I started out, but really humid from the rain we had during the night. The trees were still dripping as I made my way around the 1 ½ hour loop. The first round went pretty well, I definitely felt the run from the night before, but was fine. After around two hours though, my legs started complaining and my energy level started hitting the red zone. I continued on, but could feel my pace diminishing. By the three hour point I was pretty well spent and basically shuffled the last 15 minutes of the run. The high humidity left me soaked with sweat and pooped. I completed the run taking only three short walk breaks to eat energy bars.

Doing the Friday night/Saturday morning runs was a lot harder than with a longer break in between the runs. I think the training effect was quite good, and I have recovered pretty well today.

Have a nice weekend.

p.s. Old Jack just got a little older today, 47 years young!