Week 10, Roller Coaster Ride

Sunday's 12 mile run

Sunday: 12 miles @ 10:25 pace; I spent Saturday night (Fourth of July) at a hotel in Union Square with my parents who are visiting for a bit. I was stressing a little about waking up early to catch the train back home to get my run done early. Then I had an epiphany -- I'll just run home from the hotel! I pretty much followed the marathon route to get home. Deviated a little bit since there weren't always suitable pedestrian paths available. What an awesome run! I never do point-to-point runs unless it is a race and I felt so accomplished running somewhere with a purpose. I am glad I got to do this as it gives me a feel for some of the hills the first part of the marathon.

As you can see from the garmin map above, the tall buildings downtown really made for some poor satellite reception early on. I am therefore not entirely sure if the overall pace and mileage is correct. I was probably holding something closer to a 10:3x pace.

Tuesday: 10 miles including 7 miles @ 9:29 pace (goal 9:48); I was dragging early on in the run and didn't have high hopes, but I felt better towards the end. Really negative split the pick-up because I was hovering right around a 9:40 pace for over half of the 7 miles.

Wednesday: 10 miles @ 10:32; Again my body was really dragging the first 4-5 miles. I wanted to walk and even seriously thought of stopping. Then suddenly half way through the run I felt awesome. Was running in the 10:40's-10:50's the first half and low 10:00's the second. What gives?

Friday: 20 miles @ 10:38; First off, I know this is too fast. My current marathon PR pace is 10:31. I set off with full intentions of trying to hit an 11:00 pace. I was constantly telling myself to pull-back, pull-back whenever my 0.5 mi splits would come up on Garmin. But my pace kept getting quicker and I felt that I was running in a comfortable zone. If today had been a marathon I am pretty sure I could have PR'ed. I finished not exhausted with something extra left in the tank. Hopefully this wasn't the peak for me but it leaves me feeling much more confident after the miserable 16 miler I did last week.

That is the amazing thing about running. Last week I slogged through 16 and today 20 felt wonderful. You never know how it is going to turn out. I would even say when I left to do 16 last week I was feeling much more optimistic and excited about the run than I did today. If only someone could figure out how to capture good-run-days in a bottle...

And with that I am officially tapering! Well... Not exactly yet. Mentally I consider the beginning of my running week to be Sunday. So that is how I have been reporting my runs here. The plan I am following considers Sunday to be the last day of the week. So this coming Sunday run is technically the last run of the peak week. So I have 11 miles this Sunday and then no more double-digit runs until the marathon. I was marveling as I ruminated on the run today about how 10 milers don't seem "long" anymore.

My post-run ice soak in Homer after the 20 miler; Complete with Boudin sourdough bread to munch on & iPod to watch video podcasts during the torture.