Double digit run - a new personal distance record

Today's run (Bethpage State Park) 10.2 miles

The weather has been freezing this week and Sunday is supposed to be rainy. Although it's a busy Saturday I wanted to make sure that I took advantage of today's weather to get in some base-building distance. I briefly considered lots of loops around the neighborhood before heading to Bethpage State Park to run the bike trail. I've been wanting to break my distance record for a contiguous run (8.5 miles) and most miles in a day (9).  Bethpage was a better place to try that.

It was a chilly 29 degrees at 8:00 AM when I started my run and I was tempted to run at a faster pace than I'd planned.  I intended to run down to the Massapequa Preserve to a spot that I'd measured on Google Earth to be five miles from the trail start at Bethpage. That would allow me to complete an out-and-back total of ten miles. Once I'd passed the first mile I had warmed up enough to be comfortable. I kept my pace moderate to reserve enough energy for the final miles of this rolling course. The first four miles came fairly quickly and before I knew it I was crossing over the Southern State where the Massapequa Preserve starts. I ran that part of the trail until my Garmin chirped 5 miles and I reversed direction for the second half of my run.

There were many runners on the path this morning, lots of high school cross country runners in bunches. I noticed that the quarter mile markings on the path didn't align to my Garmin and after two or three comparisons I realized that my foot pod was off by .08 each mile. Over 10 miles that added up to about .8 miles so I knew I'd need to make that distance up at the end if I wanted to claim a true 10. By mile eight I was really feeling the workout. I had no doubt of the outcome but I was dreading the big hill at the end. I got up the hill in better shape than I'd expected and I finished the run with a few long loops around the lot that brought me confidently past the 10 mile mark. Just for good measure (pardon the pun) I ran until the Garmin read 11 miles, but I'm considering today's distance to officially total 10.2 miles.

A full day for both mind and body

I was wiped out after that run but today's schedule had little downtime. My wife, kids and I spent the middle of the day at the Cold Spring Harbor DNA Learning Center where we attended a class on the sense of smell. My son attended camp there this summer and we all had a great time. I'm thinking I'll sleep well tonight. So now that I'm in double digits for my personal distance record, maybe a half marathon isn't such an aspirational goal.