Met Paul and Jon @ first Dam and carpooled up to Franklin basin for some mountain running. We ran on a quiet dirt road up in a beautiful part of the mountains. The road was a relentless up hill all the way to the Gibson lake turnoff. I had a hard time right from the get-go but ran hard to keep up with the guys. 8:30-8:45 up the road seems slow, but it kicked my butt. Once we turned around (@ 8 miles) the going got easier as now it is downhill. We started clicking off 6:30 miles. Paul and Jon kept speeding up and my water-filled camelback drove me insane! I need to find an alternative to that thing. With 3 miles to go, they were sub 5:45 pace and I was 6:00 pace and was losing ground quickly to them. I did my best with whatever gas I had in me to finish (6:20 pace) , but I was spent.
I need more of these runs as they seem to be my weakness in the marathon. I can run "fast", I can run long, but I can't hold the effort for both. Hence "the wall". I will keep doing long runs working on running faster the second half and the wall will be pushed further and further away, but some days are frustrating. Having this week as my highest mileage week ever (72 miles, 1 more than last week) also didn't help.
On a happy note, I have now been running for a year this month and I have had some great improvements since then. At that time, I was running a 20 min 5K (compared to 17:30 ish now) and 7:30 pace had my HR in the 170's while now it is in the 150's for the same effort.
Ok enough boring stats. Long story short, I am looking forward to a good summer of training to smash some more PR's.
Total Time: 2:02:40 (16 miles @ 7:39 ave)
Ave HR: 156
Elevation change: 6600ft to 8100ft | 