Hard Long Run. 18 miles @ marathon pace + 20-30 sec./mile (that's the description from my training plan). Average pace: 8:48.
Weather: 42°F, 81% humidity, no wind.
Another Saturday morning spent on the Highline Canal Trail. I ran the first mile with a friend of mine and her neighbor. They're training for a half marathon in June. I believe it's the first half marathon for both of them. I think they're using a Runner's World training plan or something. They were doing 8 miles today. They kept up a pretty good pace on the first mile, but I left them after the first mile because I was supposed to be doing a slightly faster specific-pace run.
I'm thinking (hoping) that my marathon pace might be around 8:30, but that might be overly optimistic. In any case, I targeted my pace for today's run between 8:50 and 9:00. For some reason I find running on that dirt trail to be harder than running on rounds. The same pace always feels harder to me when I'm on that trail. I decided to do a fast finish on the last mile. That's not specified in my training plan, but it's something that I know that Greg McMillan has his runners do, so I decided to give it a try. My splits were 9:15, 8:53, 8:52, 8:48, 8:49, 8:50, 8:53, 8:46, 8:50, 8:46, 8:49, 8:47, 8:59, 8:48, 8:45, 8:52, 8:48, 7:54. I stopped at my car after the 13th mile and ate not quite half of an orange. I didn't have any tummy trouble running after that so I guess I'm okay with oranges.
I saw a softball game, a lacrosse game, a soccer game, and some people playing tennis while I was running. The southern part of the trail goes around a big park and recreation center. These play fields were all empty during the winter when I was running, but now there are people out there every Saturday. There were a lot of people on the trail today to.
I suppose I have now made it through the toughest part of my training schedule and now it's time to taper. I'm actually half-way through the so-called "sharpening" period on my training plan. Two weeks until Ogden!
P.S. I ran an extra 0.04 on the end because I knew that would get me to a whole number on my total miles for the week. | 