Long Run

I got up bright & early this morning to do my first long run in 4 weeks. My goal was to do anywhere from 15-20 mi depending on how I was feeling. I also didn't have particular pace in mind but was hoping to be under 9:00 min/mi.

Getting ready to head out & try out my potential race day outfit (depending on the weather) along with my Boston 2009 visor

I started off with a short 3 mi loop that would bring me right past my apartment in case my leg started hurting and I needed to stop running. The good news is that besides a few twinges I felt, everything was feeling good so I ran right past my apartment and headed to the Olentangy trail/bike path. It was a beautiful morning, almost 70 degrees but it felt cool by the river, with tons of people out running. There's a local half & full marathon training group that meets on this path so I was constantly running past large groups of people also training for races. They also have water stations set up for their runners and I kinda stole some today. Shhhh, don't tell! I just really didn't feel like wearing my fuel belt but I had taken some sport beans and needed to wash them down.

I happen to look down at my garmin around 12 mi and saw that I was around 1:39 for my time. I entertained myself for the next few minutes trying to figure out my pace and came up with 8:15. I was actually going a lot faster than I ever expected. At this point, I decided to turn around on the path and head back home and do 18 mi for the day. I really wanted to do 20 but wasn't sure how the last few miles would feel. Plus, I'd only run once in the past few weeks.

I made a good decision because the last 3.5 miles home have a lot of long, steady inclines. I've mentioned before this is great Boston training but wow, my legs were tired today. There's one mile long incline/hill I had to push through and I did it in 8:59. I was not pleased with this. Luckily, my pace went back down to 8:10-8:25 for my last few miles but my left quad was really starting to tighten up. I even had to stop a couple times just to stretch real quick. The only time this has ever happened to me was during Boston last year with all the ups & downs of the course. My quads were trashed by the end of marathon but I was also running a much slower pace so it didn't seem to really bother me all that much. The next day though was a different story!

I made it through my 18 mi this morning in 2:30:17 and averaged 8:21 pace. Again, this was a lot faster than I ever expected for today but I can tell my legs were getting very fatigued at the end. My shin feels good still and I plan on wearing my compression sleeves the rest of the day. I will probably run a few times this week including a longerish run next weekend (12-14 mi). I can't believe that 2 weeks from today Todd & I will be at the marathon expo!