my makeup may be flaking

Took an extra day off to get properly healed.

Ran an easy 7 in the evening. Tendonitis pain seems to have been nipped in the bud. Taking a day off kind of throws me out of whack and I ended up having only eaten a single banana prior to my run. Tomorrow I plan to do a hard 20miler to make up for missing the 30K. I will get to see how well a 15hour carbo load works!

So the plan today was to try to do a hard 20miler to see where I am. I made it about 6 miles in before calling it quits. There was a 20mph head wind battering me straight on and it was proving too much. It was also making me lose water rapidly. I was also feeling the affects of my accidental fast from yesterday. I just finished the run out as a regular long run. Oh well.

AM Did two loops of Liberty Park. I had some random tight feelings that came and went. I ended up running this faster than I should have because I started too late. Averaged 6:45 pace for 10.5 miles.

 PM Did my first hard 10miler (that wasn't a race) for quite some time. I did my usual 9.7 mile loop. The loop is divided into four segments somewhat arbitrarily. The first 3 miles is quite downhill and I did it in 16:30(5:30 pace) which is my best time ever for that segment. The next 1.85 miles has a steady climb and I did that in 11:13(6:03 pace). The next segment is the "death segment". Start out flat but turns into a never ending ascent. It has one descent which is way too steep to be helpful I did this in 17:44(6:03 pace). Each of the first three times was the fastest I'd ever done. Normally I slow down on one segment so stringing together three fast ones back to back (as the back end of a double to boot) was really good. I kind of staggered through the last segment in 11:11(5:44 pace) which is not particularly good. I was tired for sure, but there was also a tough headwind to contend with. Final time was 56:39 (5:50 pace), which beats my previous best by 30seconds. It felt pretty tough though.
 

Oh man oh man oh man. Tough day physically. Whenever I have a day with an unusual schedule, I tend to end up not eating nearly enough and it comes back to bite me...no pun intended. Did just 4 miles in the morning. Then I walked all over SLC looking at places to live. Then I walked home had a bit of lunch, then walked to the train station...went to Sandy and walked to the Wasatch running center. I finally got some good flats (adizero!) and I really like them. Then I came home, realized I had just walked at least 5miles and promptly crashed out on my bed. I shook myself awake, pulled on my shoes and ran to Sugarhouse and did three loops. When I finally left the park, I felt wiped out, like I was finishing out a particularly brutal 20miler (but it was only 12.5miles!). phew

Did two loops of Sugarhouse in the morning. Felt really tight but not too tired. I wanted to run again in the afternoon, but I had to go see a guy about an apartment I want to get. He ended up flaking out so that kind of sucked. It was probably for the best that I didn't run anyway.

So again it wasn't really a race. (I did this last year too.) It's pretty cool to see how far I've come in the last year. I really wasn't feeling that fresh today whereas last year I took 4 easy days leading up to the 20miler. Due to my lack of freshness I didn't really start off all that fast. I actually had a tough time finding my rhythm. This was partially due to an upset stomach and maybe also due to the wind which was a slight factor at the beginning (the stretch from 5k-10k is very exposed). Even at the slowish pace I started to fade past 10miles. At about 11.5 miles I took a GU which seemed to help. I took a second at mile 17 and I ended up finding the strength to close in 5:32 (for real!). I actually felt pretty decent when I was all finished. I learnt today that I need to take a GU a little bit earlier although hopefully on race day I'll feel a little bit fresher. Overall I was 7 seconds a mile faster than last year, which is almost exactly what I need to break 2:30. Last year at Boston, I was on 2:35 pace before I started to fade past mile 20. If I'm 10seconds a mile faster and I can maintain then I at least have a shot at cracking 2:30 although I estimate I'm in 2:32-2:35 shape right now.

Distance	Split	Pace	Cum. Time	Cum Pace
3.1	18:31	5:58	18:31	5:58
6.2	18:35	6:00	37:06	5:59
7.35	6:52	5:58	43:58	5:59
8.65	7:50	6:02	51:48	5:59
9.25	3:33	5:55	55:21	5:59
12.55	20:22	6:10	1:15:43	6:02
14.4	11:00	5:58	1:26:43	6:01
16.05	9:53	5:59	1:36:36	6:01
19	17:30	5:56	1:54:06	6:00
20	5:32	5:32	1:59:38	5:59