Darkside 8 Hour Run

On Saturday I lined up with about 40 other people of questionable intelligence and started running for eight hours. It was the Darkside 8 Hour Run. This run is held at a school 400 meter track. The entry fee is only $10 and food to share with the other runners. Everyone was in excellent spirits despite the hot and humid conditions (temperature got into the upper 80s and the track is black, so I'm sure the temperature on the surface was over 90). I got to talk a bit with two runners who will also be running the FANS 24 hour run in Minnesota in three weeks. I also convinced super fast Susan (she's run a couple of sub 20 hour 100s, and is running Western States for the second time this summer) to slow down and run a few laps with me. She ran Burning River last year so I was able to get some course information and tips from her.

I planned this as a training run and was successful in staying on my feet for the full eight hours with few ill effects. I had no blisters or chafing, and my legs felt fine the whole time. I did slow down as the temperature went up, but still managed to cover 34.25 miles for an average pace of 14 minutes per mile. There was one thing that came up that has never happened before, though. After about 5 hours of running, I noticed a couple of drops of blood in my urine. I kept going of course, and noticed the same thing at about 7 hours. However, my urine was clear by the time I got home. Of course I googled this, and found there were several possible causes, most of them with an underlying cause of dehydration. I thought I had been hydrating adequately, but it looks like I will have to step it up on really hot days.

As for the rest of my training this week, this is what I did:

Monday - 5.3 miles in one hour - 11:20 pace

Tuesday - 10.43 miles in two hours - 11:31 pace

Wednesday - 5.16 miles in one hour - 11:38 pace

Thursday - 5 miles in 55:05 - 11:01 pace - this was an interval workout, 400, 800, 1600, 800, 400, all at 9:40 pace

Friday - 5.03 miles in one hour - 11:56 pace

Saturday - 34.25 miles in eight hours

Sunday - 5.42 miles in 1:05 - 12:00 pace

Total for the week 70.6 miles! This is my second highest weekly total, highest was the week of the Umstead 50 mile race.