Jan Frodeno of Germany and Daniela Ryf of Switzerland won the Ironman World Championships in the men’s and women’s divisions today. They were both incredible and won by comfortable margins. I was rooting for Mirinda Carfrae of Australia but she dropped out because of back spasms. Congratulations to Jan and Daniela! I followed the Ironman online almost all day today!
Early in the morning today, I ran for 20+ miles. I started at Mountain View park and started running on the greenbelt and then onwards on the canal at around 6:15AM. I saw a lovely orange sunrise to my left and felt comfortable for the first 10 miles. I ran into Katie (she runs with Phoenix Fit) and paused for a couple of minutes to talk to her at mile 13. There were tons of runners, bicyclists, walkers and dogs-walkers out and about today. I saw plenty of familiar faces on the canal whose names I don’t know. The old Japanese lady was walking with her large hat to shade her lovely face from the sun; the fast and stocky hispanic runner without a shirt was also out running today. He passed me at around mile 12 with a torrid sub-7 pace. The girl in purple was out running on the sunny side of the canal; it must’ve been tempo run for her today; she too was running at a brisk pace!
At mile 15, I lost it. I was hot and uncomfortable. My pace slowed to a crawl and I finished the last 6 miles at a pretty slow 9:30 pace. Overall though, I managed to run 20.69 miles in exactly 3 hours for an 8:41 average.
I think I have an issue with salt and electrolyte intake. I think my body needs more. I only have 3 more weeks before New York but I am going to introduce salt to my nutrition repretoire starting next week. We’ll see if it helps.
With all my long runs done, let the taper begin…