I'll push last night's elevation preblogging down and put today's real entry at the top.
Hard long run. Average pace: 8:48.
Weather: 41°F, 52% humidity, wind 8 SW. The wind wasn't much of a factor except the last few miles when I was running into it.
The workout I was supposed to do according to my Hudson training plan was 2 miles easy, 14 miles @ marathon pace + 10-20 sec/mile, 2 miles easy. Marathon pace + 10-20 sec/mile would be about 8:50 or 9:00. Sasha wants me to practice going as long I can at 8:15 pace so that I can do that in the marathon and get ahead of my target pace and then still get the time I want with a positive split. I decided to try Sasha's plan. Last week I ran 8 miles at just under 8:00 pace with him, so I thought that today I could do 10 miles at closer to 8:15 pace. So I did 2 miles easy, 10 miles trying to get to 8:15 pace, 2 miles easy, 2 miles trying to get to 8:15 pace, and 2 miles easy. My splits were 9:57, 9:36, 8:32, 8:18, 8:19, 8:23, 8:19, 8:20, 8:18, 8:21, 8:15 (finally hit it), 8:08 (anxious to get to the easy part), 9:37, 9:45, 8:22, 8:27, 9:55, 9:34.
I put vaseline on my blisters, a bandaid on one of them, and wore my thickest socks. The bandaid didn't stay in place, probably because of the vaseline. My feet were killing me for the last several miles. Since I've finally figured out how to post pictures, I will now gross you out with a picture of my blisters. Don't laugh at the toe nail polish. I NEVER polish my nails, but this is left over from the pedicure I got on my birthday last week.
I think my feet are just hating the Sauconys. I would have worn the Brooks, but I think I need to do a few short runs in them before I do a long run. I'll wear them for my long run next week for sure. Maybe that will help.
On the up side, I'm happy to have the weekend in front of me and my long run out of the way. This is two weeks in a row doing my long run on Friday. I might do it again next week because I need to have a choir practice Saturday morning to get ready for the Easter program. I'll have to take a day off from work in order to do it next Friday because I'll have to wait until the kids are at school to run. I could go early today because my husband is on spring break and could get the kids off to school today. I day off from work to do a long run kind of sounds like fun anyway.
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Preblogging to show you the elevation profile of my 12-mile run from Wednesday. This is a combination of two 6-mile routes that I run regularly.
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