todays run was really kind of weird. I started the run with the intention of holding about 7:00 pace and maybe speeding up to as fast as 6:40 pace. I did not feel up to running a long tempo like I have been lately. Instead, my first mile was under 7:00 and I felt like I was holding back. After that, I averaged between 6:10 and 6:27 for the next 8+ miles until I made a turn around so that I could end at 15 miles for the day. The whole time I really just felt like I was cruising. I didn't feel like I was pushing the pace at all. When I turned around, I decided that when I hit my next turn around in two miles I would run a two mile tempo just to see how it felt. The next thing I know, I have sped up unconsciously and I run a 6:02 mile, followed by a 6:03. I still felt like I was not even trying to push the pace at all. So, when I hit my last turn around a little over 11 miles into my run I really turned it on, and I went flying back down the river trail. It was dark, so it made it harder to judge speed, but I was able to catch my mile times. I hit the first mile in 5:16. It still felt relatively easy. I could tell that I was pushing the pace, but I felt like I could sustain that pace forever. The last mile was a 5:12. This mile was really odd because it felt comfortable, but I felt like I couldn't really speed up. Every time I tried to speed up I did and it did not feel like it was too hard to speed up, but I felt like I really needed to focus hard in order to do so, and I couldn't focus hard enough to maintain the speed. It was very odd, and I don't really know why I couldn't maintain the speed when I went faster and I couldn't concentrate hard enough to do it. I finished my run with about 2 more miles after this, and made it back to my house running 15.1 miles in 1:34:48.
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