Ran 6 miles at TMP pace, sandwiched between 5mi. and 3.4mi. easy. I started out feeling great, despite sore hamstrings after the hills yesterday. First 5mi. went by in 42:42 (8:26 pace). Then I picked up the pace by feel to what I thought should be MP. When I looked at Garmin couple of minutes later, it said 7:40 pace!! Talk about pace judgement (but I was also going slightly downhill at that point). So I backed off a bit, and came to 1mi. split of 8:00. It was still faster than my projected MP of 8:13, but it felt very easy, and so I continued. Unfortunately, as the miles accumulated, plus slight uphills into the wind, I found this pace not so easy anymore, but I could still maintain it. I felt comfortable on flats and downhills, and struggled a bit uphills and into the strong wind. The uphills and downhills are very subtle in Regents Park, maybe 0.5-1%, but I could definitely feel them. After 4.5mi my hamstrings got really tight, and my pace slipped a bit. Overall, I ran 6mi. in 48:19 (8:03 avg.). After that I jogged 3.4mi. very easy (9:30 pace) - I was pretty tired, and probably running out of energy too, since I didn't take any gels or even water today. Total time 2:03:18.
I think the lesson I should learn from this run is the one that all marathoners have to learn, many in a painful way - I have to be super conservative with my marathon pace, no matter how easy it feels in the beginning. | 