Woke up after 11 hrs sleep with headache from yesterday. Obviously needed the rest. Ate a bagel, OJ, banana and waited for the headache to fade. 1 hr before run, took 2 tylenol. Felt surprisingly good (other than headache) for having raced 10k yesterday. Have never run particularly good long runs on the days after races in the past. Often struggled and other times cut the long run short. Didn't feel like that would be the case today. Decided to run up and down Scott Turner twice (9 mi round trip 1st time, 8 mi round trip the 2nd). Outbound legs gain about 500 feet elevation total with rolling hills throughout. Outbound trip felt good, so kept pace relatively fast with loose and easy effort. Outbound avg was 8:17/mi. Hit halfway point in w/ 7:43/mi avg pace (PMP +:32; GMP + :16). Finally shook the headache somewhere near the halfway mark. Drank some powerade at my stash at the halfway point, which was the extent of my rehydration plan. Second trip outbound, legs started feeling a bit tired....about what I'd expected for the start of the run today, given the race yesterday, so not bad overall. Decided to increase pace/effort for second half, but stay within the easy realm (okay, so maybe moderately/hard easy, but still "easy"). Second outbound trip in about 8:04/mi pace. Still felt pretty good and loose most of the way, but started tiring the last uphill mile. Ran across neighbor walking dog in last mile, asking how far I was going. I replied "13 miles on my way to 17". On my return trip, she called out "I'm proud of how far you're running!" Now, I don't really know this neighbor other than I've seen her driving up/down the road before, so needless to say this anonymous boost helped me stay focused on staying loose and knocking out the miles. Started feeling my leg muscles the last couple of miles, and last mile I started gradually feeling like I was running low on gas (some mild brain fog). 2nd (downhill) return leg was in 7:03/mi. 2nd half pace was 7:33/mi (PMP + 0:22, GMP + 0:06). Overall pace for run was 7:38/mi (PMP + 0:27, GMP + 0:11). Great confidence booster given the 10k race yesterday, how I felt before and after this run, and the aggressive pace. Now I need to sit down and settle on a race strategy for the marathon, and let the taper do it's work, without suffering from the normal stress and self-doubt period I inevitably experience during taper. I'm thinking I'll keep my mileage a bit higher than normal for the taper, since my last taper felt like I cut too far back and was a bit sluggish the last week. Will see how that works out. Also put a few long run miles on my new Adrenaline shoes to make sure I had no issues. I plan to save them now for the marathon...they felt great!
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