Ravenna - Burke Gilman - Fremont - Woodland Park - Greenlake loop. Nice endorphin rushes at miles 4 and 10. Power nap afterwards.
After looking at the splits, I think this was pretty close to an optimal long run given current level of fitness. A mile of warmup at 9:30, three more miles at 8:55 to get hot, settled in at 8:25 to 8:30 on the flats for two miles, then four miles at around 9:00 on the 400ft vertical ascent of Fremont hill, then a solid 8:15 for three miles around Greenlake and a cooldown mile at 9:36. So the flat effort was around 8:20 to 8:30, with negative splits for the run as a whole. While I won't say I never looked at the GPS, was also paying pretty close attention to biofeedback sorts of things and mostly running at a pace that felt good. The Watch still makes me self conscious and sometimes induces to push the pace too much, but on this run at least I'm glad I brought it along.
The average was about a minute off my usual pace from long runs in April, when I was not really warming up or cooling down and hitting 7:30-7:45 most of the way. And lo and behold-- when the mileage got over 25 a week my body broke down. So while I'm just now getting back to the length of those long runs before the Whidbey half last spring, I think I'm in significantly better shape and going at it quite a bit more intelligently. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way.
Still, it will be good to move on to the next stage.
Nimbus orange. | 