I was a little bit worried about this run as I was planning on pushing a little bit farther at this pace than I had pushed before. I tried a similar run last fall and was not able to run it straight through. Started out with an easy paced warm up of about 1.6 miles. Then I paused for a bit, collected myself and took off. I was going for 8 miles at 6:58 pace. I was going on an out and back run from 54 to Starkey Blvd and then back. First mile was pretty good, second not bad, the third was a bit of a struggle. Things looked better after completing the 4th mile and reaching the turn around point. Then it was one mile at a time. The weather was on my side as the heat and humidity were not too bad although it was not quite as nice as my last tempo run. Reaching 6 miles felt good, then finally as was at my last mile. Sometimes the last mile feels easier but not today, it was hard but I held onto my pace. splits were: 6:47, 6:50, 6:56, 6:40, 6:51, 6:48, 6:47, 6:47 Then I jogged a bit and ran an easy pace on the way back home. Average pace for entire run: 7:19
Cooled off in the pool, did some stretching, then biked the boys to school so Jenny could get in her run before. It sure felt good to get this run out of the way and completed successfully. It's a pretty tough week, but once this one is done, there are just two hard weeks left before I start backing off.
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