Friday, July 17, 2009

Hills and Long Run

The last 2 days brought about 2 harder workouts. First of all on Thursday, Mike and I tackled Mountain Rd for some hill reps. It was the first time Mike and I have run together in quite a while. He had hurt his knee and wasn't running too much so it was nice to finally run with another person.

We ran our 2 mile warm up and then did 5 reps up the hill. We sprinted the last one pretty fast which felt very good but really drained me. A nice slow cool down was needed and run.

Today I decided to run my long run for the weekend. I need to be home in the morning. So I went close to the lake again for a nice 20 miler. It was cool here today. I think the temp was in the upper 60's when I started with a threat of some rain. I started a little fast for the first 2 miles then I hit a hill for mile 3 and slowed. The rain started but very lightly and felt good. I was in and out of the trees as I was on a bike trail that wound back and forth through parks and along parkways. After 4 miles, I was able to pick it up some and turned around a little past 10 miles at an average of 8:43.

After turning around, i kept the same pace as I took breaks only every 5 miles for some Gu and water. I started to feel fatigue at about mile 17 but knew I had a good downhill coming. That mile was good but then when the hill was over, I was still a bit slow. I pushed the last mile and a half and finished 20.5 miles in 2:58:30 for an average of 8:42. Would I have liked to go a little faster? Sure, but I was still satisfied with this run. It was the longest run I have done in awhile. I was feeling kinda hungry toward the end so if I have a little more food in me at the start and a little more fuel with me, I think I could have kept that pace for at least a few more miles. Maybe even an entire marathon.

I plan on taking tomorrow off from running. My ankle was a little sore on the run and more so afterwards so I iced it.

In other news, the T-Shirts for the Kid's Marathon arrived today. I handed out a few to those who has signed up though my work or had a school representative I worked with. They turned out good. At the school my daughter attends, I plan on handing out the shirts at the Family Fun Run. I emailed the group today saying to show up on Sunday and get their shirts so hopefully there will be a few more that show up Sunday. I guess we will see.

1 comment:

Mark said...

Awesome 20 miler. What marathon time are you looking to run? With that pace you can really go low!
Hope the ankle keeps healing.