Morning: Lots of fun today! Ran with about 10 other teachers from Fort on the Glacial Drumlin Trail in Lake Mills. It was really nice to have the company for a change. Something I almost never have on my runs. I'd say about 99% of my training and easy runs are alone. One of the teachers is a UW-Whitewater Alum whom I ran with my freshman year at Whitewater before I transfered to Hamline. I hadn't run with him for a good 10 years, so that was fun to catch up. I know we are all planning to do more of these group runs, so I'm really looking forward to getting to know more of the runners.
After 8 miles with the group I quickly changed into my Saucony Fasttwitch and continued up the trail another 2 miles where it goes out onto country roads for about a mile. I decided that I would stick to the rolling hwy roads to simulate Boston on my 10 mile MP tempo rather than connect up with the flat gravel trail again. The hwy I ran on was as close to a simulation as I could to the middle miles at Boston, slightly rolling and open to the winds, where I'll try to lock into my MP.
Tempo miles went 6:14.4 (little slow), 5:52.5, 5:54.8, 5:58.6, 5:56.9, 5:59.9, 5:59.3, 5:49.6, 5:47.7, 5:21.3 = Avg. 5:53.5 tempo pace Avg run pace 6:55 I had a 8-10 mph wind either in my face or across me for 9 out of 10 miles, which I planned on purpose in case I meet that kind of weather in Boston. All of the miles felt comfortable in terms of effort. My right achilles struggled with the Fasttwitch shoes though. I didn't experience any pain, but it got really tight. I didn't use the heel lift today in an effort to see how it would do, but I'm thinking I may have to use the lift for it to survive the hills and longer distance at Boston.
I felt like I could have easily extended this another 4 miles and I finished strong, which is a very good sign. On a side note I also crushed my 10 mile race PR of 1:02 from last April running a 58:59 today.
The last BIG workout is done, now it's just taper and pace work with maybe a low key 5K next weekend. Can you tell I'm excited? You'd think I just wrote a race report :-) | 