In Like a Lion...

Yesterday I lifted weights at the health club while Laura did bike class. I usually will do the class with her if I am not running on Saturday, but I figured I needed a break before running 20 miles today. My friend Gil is a little out of synch with his training for the Illinois Marathon on the University of Illinois campus in Champaign-Urbana. He has six weeks to go, and he has not run a 20 miler yet. This will be my third of 5, and he is supposed to be following the same program as me, but 1 week ahead. I don’t think he has run over 15 miles in a month. Since he is trying to qualify for Boston, and he is starting to stretch the bounds of sensible training, I resolve not to pursue my 8:30 pace, my make sure he gets the 20 miles in, if he is willing to do it.
We meet Megan at the Old Plank Trail parking lot. It is kind of clear, and a little breezy, temperature in the mid 20’s. The ice on the trails has melted, but we expect there will be some icy patches from runoff from the hillsides. Our pace starts out kind of quick, closer to 8:00 minutes than 8:30 for a few miles. We settle in before we get to the hills. It is a little winding going north, until we get to more winding terrain that switches directions while meandering northwest, and eventually is pretty wooded. There are some spots where the sun shining down on the black pavement makes us pretty warm. We get to our turnaround path, and get the wind at our backs. We decide to opt to head straight back to the start, so Megan can cap her run at 13 miles. Right after we make the turn east, out of nowhere, the wind picks up, and it starts snowing, even though the sky is blue with just a few puffy clouds visible. This really makes the run tough. It is so windy, it makes me think this actually lake effect snow being blown way south.
After Megan peels off to run less than a mile home, Gil and I have seven more miles to go. We keep heading east, hoping for more cover from the trees. But with the trees bare from winter, they don’t block the wind much. Our pace slows considerably after we loose Megan’s chattiness to distract us.
We turn around for the last 3.5 miles, and now the other side of our faces get pelted by the stinging snow. The last 2 miles, our pace slows past a 10 minute mile. We keep chugging , and finish in just under 3 hours (2:57). Gil points out that this is the first time he has run 3 hours since the 2007 Chicago Marathon. Since that was 90 degree weather, I am pretty sure he ran a lot longer than 3 hours.