20 miles in 2:23:51, 7:11/mi, HR 152. Today was a 20 mile Fast Finish Long Run, with 12 miles easy and increasing speed for the last 8 aiming to average at or above my marathon pace (6:45/mi). For starters, just didn't feel like running today, much less a 20 miler. Despite the good sleep, I was still a bit tired and my legs felt beat up. Conditions were cool (55F) with some intermittent rain and winds. I finally drug myself out the door at noon (after the Penn State football game) and got to it. The first 12 miles felt harder than they should've, but after about 6 I stopped myself (mentally) from attempting to justify pushing the run off until tomorrow and things got a bit better. Route was twice up and down Scott Turner, so about 600' elevation climb and return the first trip, and 500' the second. Took GUs before starting and at 4.7, 12, and 17.3 with water points every 2.7-4 miles. Last 8 were pretty tough. First 4 of those were uphill so I tried to hold back a bit and aimed to keep the pace under 30 seconds off my predicted MP. First four uphill splits were 7:03, 7:04, 7:17, 7:21, with the effort (and grade) increasing as I went. On the downhill return, I aimed to keep it at 30 seconds faster than my predicted MP (PMP) for the first two and to gradually speed up to as fast as possible for the last two. Last 4 were 6:13, 6:18, 6:13, 6:08, so a bit slow on the second and not much of a speedup on the last two. By the final two miles, the rain was really coming down and the cold was getting into my legs and I just wanted to quit, but I managed to toughen up mentally to push a bit harder as the grade flattened out. So last 8 miles I averaged ~6:42/mi, better than my PMP and even better than my goal MP. I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out, considering I wasn't feeling especially rested and I still managed to finish strong. One more next weekend, then the peaking phase begins with some reduced mileage and a touch more intensity. | Adrenaline 8 (Blue) | | | Asics 2130 (Blue) | 156.70 176.70 miles | | NB 903 | |
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