20.28 miles out and back from home. Totally flat, ave pace 8:57 Total time 3:01:38 Perfect morning for a run (at least for January). It rained over night so the roads were damp and the air felt moist. It was 7:25 am, dark , perfectly still air, bright moon in the western sky, which was the direction I was headed. My goal was at least three hours on my feet and or 20 miles. This is my first 20 miler before Boston. I started out slow and planed on staying slow for the first 10 miles. Once I hit ten I was going to evaluate what to do then, hopefully I'd be able to pick it up a little on the way back, that was the best possible outcome, however, I was prepared to slog it back at the same pace and I was still going to be happy. First 10 9:27 9:30 9:50 9:35 9:25 9:27 9:19 9:07 9:12 9:13 11-15 9:13 9:03 9:01 8:59 8:30 I'm starting to pick it up and by mile 15 I wanted to pound hard the rest of the way but I told myself to hold back, this is my first 20 miler in the training cycle so keep it at 8:30, maybe slowly take it up to 8 by mile 20. 16-20 8:22 8:04 (oops, a little faster that I wanted) 8:08 8:04 7:21, then a cool down of .28 miles at 9:25. I decided to hammer the last mile, I wanted Rattletrap to be proud! After a couple of days of miserable running, this one was wonderful. I felt very strong at mile 15. This run turned out to be much better than I had hoped for. A very good day indeed. I weighed myself after the run, 148. I felt good about that too.
| 