Good Good Good Vibrations
Going into this week I felt I needed to have a good week to be able to build momentum and boost morale. I got exactly what I wanted. It was a very good week.
My midweek run was scheduled to be 9 miles. I felt so good when I got the 9miles I stretched it to 10. I gave the last mile everything I could. The mile split was 8:51 which for in my world is excellent. In my world 9:30 is a good split so a sub 9:00 is a feat I rarely have seen. Since have this little superstition thing that I like to end my runs to include the last tenths of the run I am training for I continued on to end the run at 10.2.
Today was a day that I looked forward to and to be honest there was some concern. The schedule called for a 20 mile run. When I did 18 awhile back I struggled to get to the 18. When I did I stopped. I wasn’t sure if the run was going to be like my midweek run a few days back or the 18 miler a few weeks back. Happy to write that today was also very good.
My run pretty much went flawlessly through the entire run. I woke up on time. I wasn’t rushed at all. The weather was pretty much perfect, just maybe a touch on the warm side. I didn’t need to make any nature stops. I never once had the feeling of why the heck am I out here doing this.
The route I ran was probably the best training route I have ever done. The route had everything from easy to difficult stretches and everything in between. The first 5 miles was pretty much flat a few minor ups and downs. Just after mile 6 there was a fairly steep uphill and than a gradual incline before leveling off at which point I took a road that looped back to the top of the steep hill. Than it was down the steep hill. After that the next 4 miles were pretty much flat. The next 5 miles was ups and downs. I knew going in this was going to be the most difficult part of the route. There wasn’t a level spot to be found over the 5 miles and there were more ups than downs. The final 2.5 miles was flat flat flat. I certainly enjoyed the route that’s for sure.
Finally I ran a very comfortable pace and was very pleased to see it was a bit better than 10:00 pace overall. At mile 15 was 2 ½ minutes ahead of a 10 minute pace and feeling very good. At mile 17 I knew I could get the run done under the 10:00 minute pace of 3:20 even if I backed done a bit. I chose to take a drink break at 17 and would do so again at miles 18 & 19. I made it 20 in good form. Than like the other day I slowed the pace down to cool down a bit and get to that .2 number. I never felt overly fatigued throughout the run.
So all in all it was a good good good week. I’ll step back just a bit on my long run at the end of the week. In two weeks I’ll try to extend out a bit farther by going for somewhere around 22 to 24 miles. Without a doubt mo is on my side.
Have a great week.