Thanks to those of you who offered some words of encouragement after last week's post. Easing up mentally and physically has largely had the desired effect - I'm feeling better about running again. It doesn't hurt that the weather has largely been better, but I'm choosing to believe that just running my miles and enjoying them has been positive.
Tuesday
I had planned to run, but ended up having to have an hour-long phone call after work. So, I didn't get any miles in Tuesday.
Wednesday
6 miles @ 9:07/mile. Nothing stands out about this one. Easy peasy run, I reckon.
Friday
6 miles @ 9:04/mile. Ended the week with some low impact miles. I've just been running and not worrying about pace, but it's funny that I keep settling into the same groove. I suppose my comfort zone is in the low-9s, at least for these sort of distances.
Saturday
10 miles @ 9:09/mile. I stayed up a little late on Friday and woke up normal time, so I was a little tired for this one. Probably a little dehydrated, too. Knowing I had a big run on Sunday, I didn't want to push too hard on this, but as often the case, I went a little quicker than I had intended. By left thigh and right inner ankle were a little tight/sore at the end, but nothing I'm too concerned about. i think dehydration might have been a factor with the thigh tightness, as I was incredibly thirsty for the a while after the run.
Sunday
17 miles @ 9:31. With my 16 mile run a few weeks ago being a bit of a disaster at the end (started too fast, hit the wall hard around mile 12, too much walking the last four miles), I wanted to make a deliberate effort to ease up on pace for the sake of remaining consistent for the entire 17 miles. Fastest mile was 9:06 and the slowest mile was 10:46 (which isn't entirely accurate - I was running Strava continuously and had a long wait at a busy intersection) most of my other miles were right in a 9:20-9:30 range and I felt very consistent throughout.
I had a Clif bar an hour or so before the run, 10 or ounces of Gatorade and some water. I really wanted to make to sure I was properly hydrated before taking off.
The weather was probably perfect for a long run. Overcast, mid-50s, it had just rained so the air felt cool and damp. If we had identical conditions for the upcoming (or any) marathon, I'd be thrilled. It felt really cool.
I had a sleeve of energy chews with caffeine that I ate throughout the run. I've mentioned this before, but my body responds really well to the caffeine. Since I don't drink caffeinated beverages outside of a couple of times a year, I think the caffeine works pretty well. On the other hand, maybe it's just a placebo effect, but I'll be using caffeinated chews for the next marathon. (I used them at WDW marathon this past year and they worked really well up until the point my body just fell apart, but no nutrition strategy was going to change that.)
So, really really good run to end the week. And with that, we taper down to Run CRANDIC in three weeks. I know this won't be a peak race, but that wasn't never part of the plan. I figure I'll finish in about 4:15, which seems to be right about average for me based on four other fulls. An average marathon is just fine and better than no marathon at all. So, bring it on.
Miles this Week: 39
Year to Date: 353