14.3 miles with my group at 6:30am. Weather=AWESOME!!! 58F, 44% humidity, 6mph wind, sunny. Average pace=7:40/m.
mile 1- 8:38
mile 2- 7:44
mile 3- 7:47
mile 4- 7:44
mile 5- 7:43
mile 6- 7:40
mile 7- 8:14 (I think I forgot to stop my watch when we stopped here cuz I know we weren't doing over 8:00)
mile 8- 7:41
mile 9- 7:19
mile 10- 6:57
mile 11- 7:04
mile 12- 7:31
mile 13- 7:51
mile 13.7 pace- 7:56
mile 14.3 pace - 7:12
This was the best run I've had in a long time. I dedicate this run to 5-finger socks. I didn't feel my feet at all the whole run. ZERO BLISTERS!! Normally, I have to endure the feeling of needles jabbing into my feet on long runs. Not today and it was awesome!
Also awesome was my new Nike Pegasus shoes which were light weight and felt great! Oh and the weather today!! Heaven! Amazing. Perfect.
I talked to Jody before starting today and she and I agreed a good plan would be to run 8:00 pace until the turn around and then get faster. Well, that was the plan. We started running with Emily and somehow we ended up in front of everyone in the beginning. Emily left after only 2 miles because she is just coming back from injury. At this point Jody and I decided to slow down. We didn't. So much for our plan.
At the water stop the rest of the girls caught up and started running with us. Elise, Melissa, Jody and I continued the 7:45's. I started feeling really, really great with the pace at mile 4-5. I felt like I could do this all day. Then at the turn around I put both my ipod headphones in and just started going fast. Melissa kept up. I ran miles 9 and 10 with Melissa. We were really pushing each other faster and faster. I didn't look at my watch but at the water stop she told me we were doing 7:00. I felt great though. I was amazed at how much energy I had. I wish I knew what I did so right this week so I can repeat it every week!
At mile 9.5 water stop Jody and Elise caught up and we all decided we would run fast until the next water stop and then we'd do a cool down final 3 miles. Sounded good to me. So from 9.5 to 11.5 I ran about 7:00 pace. At this point I was starting to get tired. I forgot to gu at the last stop. Good thing we're slowing down.
We ran slow from 11.5 until 13.5. Amazing how 7:50 pace felt really easy now whereas at the beginning of the run it felt hard. So at 13.5 mile I saw that I had about 1/2 mile left to the store and I decided to just let her rip for the remainder. Lady GaGa came on my ipod at this exact moment so I figured it was meant to be. I pushed my lap reset button at this point so I would know how fast I did it. Ended up being 7:12 pace.
Jody, Elise and Melissa didn't go fast at the end but they ran an additional .7 mile so they would have exactly 15 today.
It was a great run! I was so excited to have felt this great. I really need to strategize my long runs better though. I'm running these things without a plan. I might be going too fast if my goal marathon time is 3:25 (7:50/m pace). Or I might be underestimating what my goal marathon time should be... maybe I should aim for a faster time? Maybe I'm getting too cocky. Ha, ha! I mentioned this to my friend, Greg, after the run today and he suggested that I run a 1/2 marathon race as fast as I can in a couple weeks to see where I'm at. I think that's a good plan.
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