The Long Run

14.59 mi, 1:55:24, 7:46 avg

Last long run for this training cycle. 1.5 mile warm up, 10-11 @MP, 1.5 mile warm down.  At the start of this plan, these long runs with MP miles were tough, part of it was weather (back in August), part of it was fitness, and part of it mental since I'd usually only ever run faster miles as part of a fast finish long run.  Today's run felt good.  I had a little more confidence than usual that I could do the job.

Got onto pace ok for the first mile after the warm up.  Ran in Starkey Park on the bike trail.  Happened to start right at one of the half mile markers (1 1/2 mile line), trail is marked to 6 1/2 mile line, then it hits the Suncoast Trail.  I had one 10 oz bottle, thought I might stop briefly if I needed more but I'd keep going if I could.  Took one Roctane gel (salted chocolate) - also, an hour before the run I had a beet juice concentrate.  

First mile at 7:32, then 7:27, and then back to 7:32.  After that the miles each got a little bit faster.  Still felt good at the turnaround and pace kept on increasing a little bit.  Last mile at 7:00.

MP miles - 7:32, 7:27, 7:32, 7:25, 7:21, 7:26, 7:17, 7:17, 7:15, 7:14, 7:00

Except for the last mile I didn't feel like I was pushing too hard or racing the workout. 

Two weeks from today, hopefully I can lock in a good pace and hang on.  This will be my longest marathon plan and probably the most varied one and only one so far with scheduled hill repeats.

Next big accomplishment for the day was disposing of two old tube TV sets sitting in my garage to the county hazmat dropoff day ($5 each was worth it - old paint and stuff like that was free to drop off).

8.96 mi, 1:13:26, 8:12 avg, elev gain 219 feet

One of the last hard workouts but a little bit easier vs the trend of increasingly harder Tuesday workouts.  Today's workout was 5x1km @10k pace, followed by 5x200m @5k pace with 30 second rests between the 200's (felt kind of like tabatas).  

The night before I almost felt like I was coming down with a cold and worried a little bit about pushing it, but felt fine after the warm up.  

Route was straight down Lakeview, turn right onto Sandy Hook road to it's first turn for 1km.  Did the 2 minute rest/jog by going a little farther and then back the way I came for the next repeat.  During the first one I was running about a 6:45 pace at first and forgot that it was supposed to be 10k pace, thinking it should have been half marathon pace so started to slow down but fortunately remembered the correct pace, picked it up a little bit.

1k repeat paces: 6:40. 6:30, 6:38, 6:28, 6:31

200's were pretty fun, ran those a little fast : 5:42, 6:13, 6:04, 5:53, 5:59

Just a few more big workouts left!

3.73 mi, 35:22, 9:29 avg

Easy run on day after harder run, legs were whining a little bit.  Out and back run in Westlake, to the south and out the neighborhood just far enough so I'd have a little bit over 3.5 miles.  Now it is starting to feel like taper week but too early to get that feeling where you have extra energy becuase you've cut back on miles.  One more harder run this week and then fewer runs next week leading up to Saturday in Jacksonville.

8.05 mi, 1:07:33, 8:24 avg, elev again 155 feet

I swapped scheduled runs around.  Today was supposed to be 2x3 miles @ half marathon pace, with mile rest, and 2 miles warm up and 2 warm down, which I wanted to run on Starkey Blvd.  But, I had to pick up Sophia by 9:00 from Scott's house, so instead did one big loop near Westlake, heading north on Belcher, west on Klosterman, and then south down the Pinellas trail (more like a trapezoid than a loop).  Run was good, temperature was pleasant mid 50's, one small handheld bottle of gatorade was plenty.  I only had to stop once while waiting for the light to cross over alt-19.  First mile was 9:40 (not bad for a warm up mile for me), then steadily got faster, except for mile 7 where I slowed down by 5 seconds (maybe that was the stopping and then starting while waiting to cross alt-19).

Finished run a little bit after 8:00, so enough time to leave and get Sophia.  Saw Aubrey compete in national cheer leading competition for Pop Warner at Wide World of Sports in Orlando.  They did well.

11.21 mi, 1:17:19, 7:48 avg

This was Friday's run switched to today.  Basically, 2x3 mi at half marathon pace, with 1mile easy between sets, 2 mile warm up and 2 mile warm down.

Ran on Starkey Blvd bike trail starting at the little church, ran 1 mile out and then back for the warm up, then got going on the hard part.  I had a little bit of trouble locking onto pace for the first mile, but felt better on the next two miles.  Easy mile felt easy, then turned around and was able to get onto pace easier this time.

First set: 7:05, 6:54, 6:51

Second set: 6:58, 6:58,6:46

8.49 mi, 1:12:21, 8:31 avg

Taper week (or sharpening phase), this will be the last hard workout before the race.  There was one more scheduled but that was based on the race being on  Monday instead of Saturday.

After two mile warm up, 3x1200m at half marathon goal pace, or about 7:00 pace.  Went pretty well, with average paces of 7:00, 6:55, and 6:53.

Next up 4x400m @ 5k pace, about 6:30, - the first one felt hard but not really, it felt like I was going fast enough but the pace said otherwise but still managed to get close to 6:30, next three were better especially the last one.  Paces for these were: 6:34, 6:10, 6:26, and 5:58

Finally wrapped things up with two miles easy.

Weather was nice and cool, low 50's, felt perfect.

3.09 mi, 28:50, 9:19 avg

One more easy paced run (which turns out to be the last run before Jacksonville).  Ran down Belcher to Nebraska and back into Westlake Village.  The route made an image on the map that looks like a (slighlty overweight) bird stitting on its perch.   Cooler that yesterday at 46 degrees, perfect marathon weatther (unfortunately it will be a littler warmer and rainier on Saturday).

6.0 mi, 1:03:45, 10:37 avg, elev gain 103 feet

Ran with Joe and Jamie starting in Westlake Village, out the south entrance and over to and just past Pop Stansell Park before turning around and coming back the same route in reverse.  This was my first run back since the marathon - so one full week off.  This was one of Jamie's first runs back in a while after taking a few months off.  We did 4/1 run/walk and it felt pretty good.  Weather was nice 55 degrees and cloudy.

3.16 mi, 27:02, 8:33 avg

Stayed overnight in Siesta Key for mini getaway with Jessica and her kids.  Yesterday had done iFly and some Christmas shopping on our way down here and then spent a little time walking on the beach before going out to dinner.   Hotel was about 0.3 miles from the beach, so ran out there and then out and back heading north.  Faster run than Saturday but kept it short.  Ran with Jacob.

4.24 mi, 36:16, 8:33 avg, elev gain 52 feet

A bit behind on updating my blog, but wanted to put in an entry for the final day of the year to wrap things up and then I'll try and catch up tomorrow.

I ran the Jacksonville Marathon on 12/15.  Did pretty good, I'd say somewhere around my "B" goal if I had actually made up a,b,and c goals with the "A" goal being a BQ, or sub 3:25.  Actual time was 3:31:05, with a decent first half just under 1:41 (thinking that I could do 3:20 or better but held back just a little).  Rough patch started after crossing mile 16, then a slower mile 17 (8:50), then a small comeback for 18-20, followed by two over 9:00 miles, and finally picked myself back up, and stayed in the 8:11-8:40 range for final miles, with way too much left in the tank for the final kick.  Way better than NYC which was a struggle to get 3:49.

Since the marathon ran 5 shorter runs (with first run one week post marathon), and then attempted 22 miles this past Saturday which turned into a struggle and more like 21.4 than 22.

And finally today, 4.24 miles in Westlake, out and back run, enough miles to get over 130 for the month, felt much better than Saturday.  Running-wise, 2018 started out kind of rough, built back up and decided to train within a schedule which helped a lot and kept my legs pretty fresh with the variety of different work outs, short runs, long runs, extra day off here and there.

Outside of running it was a good year, a few rough patches and some struggles here and there, things that I wish could be better,  but much to be thankful for, and probably even more than I realize.  Hoping for another good year in 2019.