I'm changing my approach to this blog by just updating whenever I feel like it. At a minimum, I will continue to do a weekly recap.
Today, I mentioned to Caitlyn that I am starting to feel like I'm training like a serious runner. I see now that I have exceeded 40 miles in 3 days, and I don't think I have ever done that before. The great thing about this is that it feels pretty good.
Fortunately, we had some warmer weather for this workout, although it was windy. I'm very lucky to have Caitlyn run workouts with me sometimes. She is amazingly talented, and I have managed to get to the point where I am somewhat close to her times, but she still has me beat at every distance except the marathon - which she has never attempted!
I snuck in an extra 2 miles before the run since I had some time to kill. When Caitlyn showed up, we headed up Mill Street in Worcester for an easy 2 miles before starting marathon pace. This early in the training, I'm not quite sure what marathon pace is. It was 6:45 goal in Philly and I averaged 6:44. I need 6:29 to break 2:50. Matt has suggested that I keep it close to 6:40 for now. But tonight, I have learned to stop thinking about breaking a certain time. First of all, I don't need to limit myself to a certain time, but also I need to feel things out before knowing what marathon pace should be. I'm sure that I would be happy if I ran 2:52, 2:53. I may even run 2:46, 2:47. It's not worth sweating over.
The marathon pace run went very well. The hills are rolling and the faster miles were downhill portions while the slower miles were a little uphill. We hit the first mile in a conservative 6:46, no thanks to avoiding cars and the like. We got it down to 6:36 for the 2nd mile and a brisk 6:30 for mile #3. It was back into the headwind and uphill for some of mile 4, and it showed with a 6:44. I started to get a little winded at this point, but I stayed strong and ran mile 5 in 6:40 before hammering the final mile in 6:30. We averaged about 6:38 a mile before cooling down with another 2+ miles. That gave me a total of 12.2 miles for the day, just one day after running 17.1. With the 11.4 from Saturday, that was quite a stretch.
So right now, marathon pace is 6:38 from a workout on a windy day the day after running 17. I am happy with that for now.
This was an awesome run! I am still not in the clear with this awful cold though! Taking some down time so I can rebound fully next week and do some more runs like this (without adverse side effects!).
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