My first taste of LSD

I have been running for more than a year but I never had the guts and chance to do LSDs. I have been consistently training on my own and have been contented in running 5K every single time. So, since I formally join Team Bald Runner and is training for NYC Marathon, I was invited by my co-runners to do an LSD in Clark today. I instantly said yes since in my traning, my schedule was to run 22K and the team decided to run a 25K (since most of them are training for PAU). I decided to run the 22K and would check by that time if I can still run the remaining 3K.

The day started really early by meeting Iah and Macky at Shell Mckinley and then met up with Tin and Kaye at NLEX for some breakfast. Upon arrival at Clark, I was able to meet the other folks from Team Bald Runner and we took off for our run. As this is an LSD, the group's pace was normally slower than everybody's pace, well, except for me. We were running at 6:30 pace and I was still doing well. For perspective, I usually run trainings at 7:00-7:30. I was comfortable running as the air was clear and the weather was awesomely perfect.

At 5K, I was still at my best and was happy that all my pocket trainings were working. The fatigue has not yet kicked in and it allowed me to continue pacing with the team. At this point, the team are slightly inching away from each other while our support vehicles meet us at approximately 2K intervals to provide us with our hydration and other supports. We finally met our turn around mark (at 12.5K) and this is where I started to feel that I am slightly tired. We went on running with me usually at the last batch of the runners. I was still comfortable and tailing everybody else until around 17K. Afterwhich, I felt that I needed to rest but since the team was already ahead of me, we immediately ran after my quick water break. I was the last runner and would ensure to keep an eye on the 2 runners ahead of me to not get lost.

While we were in an area of woodlands in the left and a wall in the right, I was focusing intently on my breathing and was looking at the ground as the road goes uphill, then, when I glanced at the next runners, they were gone. I panicked a bit as I am not sure I remember the route early on the run. I just went on and made some minor backing when I felt I am loosing the right way. During this time, I have to stop to about 3 times to ask for directions. The problem is, I do not even know where I am going. So I just continued running until I see from time to time spots which I remember earlier in the run. At 22K, I stopped. And walked. Until 25K.

Primarily, I walked because I was quite scared already of getting lost and I was already trying to figure out how to call my friends. Then, at one point, I saw a tent, which I vividly remember Jerry joking that it was suppose to be a "water station". I felt relived and knew I was right on track and couple of meters away from the parking area. I saw my friends chatting and congratulated me for running my first LSD.

Lesson learned: train hard so I don't get left behind.

Happy about: running 22K. With very minimal walk breaks (during drinking breaks only)

Will definitely do LSDs with the gang next time.