Friday, August 04, 2006

Finally, a Decent Run

Yesterday after work I went for a run that was going to be 4.5 miles, I’m having a cutback week this week and am trying hard to keep mileage under 40 (preferably even closer to 35-37) and have a 20 miler this week…Tuesdays run in the rain was OK, I went .5 miles further than planned because of where I was in the run, so I was cutting back yesterdays wanting to run today as well (which I still might do, but can’t go further than 2.5)…I have 2 days of rest scheduled into this week as well, right now I might even have 3, which I really hate!! Anyway, I got out after work yesterday, it was cooler, low 80s, which is still fine for me, only a light wind but no humidity (well very light) which is what the drain factor for me is…I started out and it felt good, I had also taken Wednesday completely off so my body should’ve been fully rested and it was. I hit the first mile at 8:30…The next mile, a bit hilly, came in just under 9 and the rest were slowest of 8:40 and fastest of 8:25…all feeling easy, in fact it felt so good that I turned it into a 6 miler (average pace for the run was 8:36), which is why I really mean no more than the 2.5 today (I'm at 16.5 already for the week with a 20 miler tomorrow). I am running a half marathon tomorrow, mostly as a training run that gives you a nice technical shirt, I’m going to get to the start line early enough to get hopefully 4-5 miles in before the race, and then I’ll run the race and get another 2-3 in after to complete my first 20 miler of this training cycle. Weather should be good, slight chance for rain I think, but it should be cool. I’m figuring on running a 9:30 or so pace for the warm up run, then the marathon at or around 9 minute pace, maybe picking up the pace at the end see if I can PR this from last year and then the cool down slower to try to get an average closer to 9:10 or so for the entire 20, but we’ll see. I just hope the legs feel good tomorrow…it is a pretty nice course and is only a 15 minute (if that) drive from my house to the start. There was decent food after and even free tickets into the pool that is located by the start. I didn’t use them last year but maybe this year I will!!

2 comments:

Kurt said...

DG, good luck on the half marathon and sounds like a smart training plan you have going.

Lets us know how you do on the half.

Enjoy the run!

MNFirefly said...

Good luck tommorow. Hopefully the rain will hold off until the afternoon.