I ran part of the Des News marathon course with Sasha and Seth this morning. I am not running the marathon with them, but I figured it would be a good workout anyhow. We drove up to the start of the marathon and after I dropped them off I ran back down to the three mile mark where I ran a one mile warm-up before waiting for them to make it down to me. The reason that I didn't run the first three miles is because it is a nasty downhill, and I didn't want to beat up my legs or put in as many miles. Anyhow, I ran from there to the zoo which is about 12.75 from the 3 mile mark. My total time for 12.75 was 1:16:57 and overall it didn't feel too hard. My mile splits were: 5:10 - just finishing off the steep downhill, then a slight uphill. 5:23 - a mix between up and downhill, mostly down. 5:51 - starting to head up the hill before we get into immigration canyon. 6:36 - uphill pretty much the entire way. Sasha asked us to back off a bit. 6:07 - mostly uphill, but it flattened out near the end and even headed down a bit. 5:19 - downhill mile. 5:52 (40:18 for 7 miles) - has a couple downhill sections at a low grade, and one uphill section between the downhill. After this we backed off to about 6:00 pace for a bit and then slowed down a bit more from there. We made it from mile 13-15 (10-12 for me) in just under 13:00, so we didn't slow down too much, but it was downhill so it made it easier. Overall the workout didn't feel like it was too hard of an intensity and we were moving pretty well so I am happy with it. I was also pleased to see that I was still chatty while going through the main uphill section that we ran. Seth was asking me about what my background was with running and I was chatting away for a while.
| 