Chain of Lakes Long Run

Long run day…And a cold turn to the weather...nothing like upper 70s early in the week and even mornings I was still in shorts and today I was in tights and long sleeves, although most people were at least in shorts, I'm just too cold usually for that...short days, cold weather, winter is here, OK so it's only fall, but I'm a spring/summer girl...I don't like this time of year! Thank God I'm going to CA on Thursday!

Plan, originally was 20 miles…I was 4.5 miles in and feeling really good, although running a bit faster than planned, I was going to do 20 miles and then as good as I was feeling, I started thinking about my half next weekend…and I realized I want to run as good a one as I can, so I decided to cut the run short and actually “taper” a bit for this run. At that point I heard my name yelled out, I saw a good friend of mine and stopped just before mile 5 and we chatted…and 25 minutes later I finished mile 5 in 35 minutes…yeah, talked longer than I figured we would, but that’s OK. I continued on, I was running the Chain of Lakes, approximately 10.5-11 miles depending on which paths you use in your run. I decided at that point to finish the chain and do between 10 and 15 miles. I made it to Lake of the Isles and ran it twice and then finished a bit harder on my last couple of miles and finished 13 miles. It felt good and after the run I again ran into my friend who had seen me on my finish, (she had done 10, I was a mile ahead of her when I saw her) we ran over to Whole Foods and I bought a few things then headed to the Farmers’s Market for some nectarines and was pleased to find out my Cortland apples are ready so I bought a bag of them as well, and visited with my friend that works down there for a bit. Then I headed home, took a bath, crawled into bed and took an hour and a half nap, got up, made dinner and am now getting myself ready for work…well, after I finish this I really need to get ready for work!! I decided against the 25K tomorrow and instead am doing a shorter run which will put me at low 40s for the week, I’m cutting next weeks workouts a bit easier to rest the legs, will run a hard half, take a couple of days to recover and then 3 hard weeks to the taper for my marathon…I can’t believe it’s coming up so quickly.

Mile 1: 9:41
Mile 2: 9:07
Mile 3: 9:16
Mile 4: 9:32
Mile 5: 32:44
Mile 6: 8:43
Mile 7: 8:45
Mile 8: 8:48
Mile 9: 9:26
Mile 10: 8:47
Mile 11: 8:28
Mile 12: 8:26
Mile 13: 8:15

I’m going to assume the 33 minute mile in there was actually about a 9:00-9:15 pace, so averaged a 9:05 or so for the run…not bad…