Long May You Run

17 miles on the track.  Nice warm day, 54° and sunshine.  As I started this run my goal was to go 15 miles.  Once I got a few miles into it I decided I better get some marathon pace miles in, Boston is only 35 days away.  I'm still not sure what time I should shoot for, but it's looking like about 3:15.  3:20 is my C goal and 3:10 would be wow I can't believe I ran this fast but did goal.  I think I also need to run around Boston a little on Saturday and Sunday to see what this sea level thing is all about.  If I have the strength and fitness to run around 3:15 I might pick a few extra minutes since I live and train at 4500 feet.  I guess I'll see.  So anyway, back to my run today, as I slogged away for the first few miles I thought how can I possibly run a 3:10, that's a 7:15 pace.  With my C goal being 3:20 I figured I'd run some 7:38's.  I wanted to do the last 5 miles at this pace so here is what happend.

9:24  8:51  8:55  9:03  8:53  8:51  8:02  7:58  7:49  7:36  7:27  7:28  7:15  7:16  7:12  7:12  7:14  total time 2:16:22   8:01 ave pace.  Once I hit the 7:15's I decided to see If I could bang out 5 of them.  It took a lot of strength and it felt good to tack on a few extra miles.  I considered see how many more I could tack on but it was getting very hard and I felt like I would have been entering that zone of foolish training so I made #17 my last.  I liked what I did here and feel good about 3:15.

This week is going to be another 100 miler or very close to it. 

10.9 miles  1:38:15  9:01 ave.  I can sure tell I ran hard yesterday.  Today was like lifting weights.  Each step was a repetition with a heavy weight.  I had the strength but not the speed.  It was a good pounding workout.

5.65 am miles 51:51   9:11 ave pace

13.1 pm miles  B Street route, 11th ave to the cemetery, back and forth behind the Capitol then home.  Wow, am I beat up.  This half marathon slog was a real leg builder.  9:15 ave pace. 

5.65 am miles 53:36  9:29 

13.1 pm miles 2:07:01  ave pace 9:42.  wow, that's slow.  cold, windy rain.  I am still shivering.  This was a miserable run, in fact, this one should count twice.  B St. route, 11th ave to cemetery, back and forth behind the Capitol, then home.

Starting off the week with a hard longish run is sure slowing me down now.  Tomorrow will be a lighter day (yay) and Fridays are always very light.  Looking forward to it, after this evening's run, I feel like I never want to run again.   

5.4 am miles  9:14 ave pace 49:54  felt pretty good considering how horrible yesterday was.

4.65 pm miles, straight home, nothing extra.  Ahhhhhhh, so nice to be home.  43:19   9:19 slow and easy.  Only a morning run tomorrow then 20 on Saturday.  I plan on having some spunk back by then. 

5.65 am miles  no watch.  Felt pretty good.  I've been planning all week to run a 20 miler tomorrow it's going to be windy and I find that very demoralizing.  I've already done a 20 miler in the wind, I really don't want to do another.

21.29 miles,  3:14:11  9:07 ave.  This was an out and back from home, but a lot of hills.  I turned around and the high point of the run which was 5223 feet.  The low point of the run was 4239 feet, so that's about a 1000 foot gain over eleven miles.  Almost all of the elevation gain was over about a 6 mile stretch from 4.5 miles to 11.  I chose hills today because of the wind.  I don't care much about my pace when I'm climbing.  The wind was not as bad as I thought it would be.  There were some pockets of calmness which was unexpected.  My route started at the valley floor, up Victory Road to 500 North (road north of the Capitol) loop behind Capitol over to 11th, 11th turns into Poperton and at the top of Poperton is a neighborhood that I weave through (steep climb) to get to the base of the U on the mountain.  Turn around and come home.  Got my 100 plus week in.  I'm thinking of doing another 100 miles next week and this will be the last one for this training cycle.  30 days to Boston!