It's never to early to plan ahead. (Is it?)

So, I'm already thinking about routes for some of the really long training runs. Sorry, but the timelapserunner couldn't resist. Besides, it's fun to draw little maps and see where the mile markers would be. There will, of course, be logistical challenges to these longer runs (e.g., procuring water, not getting lost, etc.); but just seeing how to squeeze all the miles into finite geography and avoid jogging down the Interstate seems like a place to start.


As the thumbnail above hints at and the figure below shows more clearly, I decided to look at a half marathon route first. Come Saturday, September 29th, that will be the length of Week 12's long run. It'll be here before we know it, mon cher (for y'all from Louisiana). The route projected on the map below takes in a good portion of the LSU campus and the LSU Lakes, but to get the needed distance, we have to venture into town a bit and pick up an extra 4+ miles. Not a big deal - except we're going to be crossing Acadian Thruway twice. So be it. We'll be careful walking across that street, looking both ways several times. It'll be OK.

A half marathon route taking in LSU, the Lakes and a bit of town

From the small print in the figure's inset, you can see a prediction of about three hours for this workout. That's assuming we average a leisurely Galloway-paced 14 minutes per mile. We're not sure of the exact pace for this workout yet because we don't have a forecast of the morning temperature that far in advance. However, using historical numbers for that day of the year, the timelapserunner calculates something like 13:52, so 14:00 is close enough for estimation purposes. Three hours. Yes, three hours.

Now, looking WAY far ahead - when we need a 26 miles training run - we could actually run this circuit twice. That would push the boredom factor up several notches, for sure ... but building a 26 mile route that doesn't backtrack OR run into competition with automobiles may prove rather tricky. We'll see. And that would take, yes, a whopping six hours to complete!

TODAY'S WORKOUT: Casual+ walk around the neighborhood averaging 15:53 per mile. The slightest tweaks from the left hamstring area, but we are not yet doing serious stretching. This could present a problem in the long run (no pun intended).