I Remember When 8 Miles was a Long Run

I was afraid I was going to miss a run for the 4th day in a row.  I spent the whole work day trying to catch up on the backlog of tasks that had accumulated after three days away in Catalina.  Leaving my run options to late in the day, I wasn't sure I'd get a decent opportunity due to the stiff winds, which I was pretty sure would discourage me from venturing outside.

But I got it done and actually had a good run.  The wind had died down and was basically nil.  The strength of the workout was a surprise, given the temporary layoff, but I'm finding that to be pretty typical if the layoff isn't too long.  This was a 3 day respite, yet still I felt good and strong. I volunteered to take Bailey to her 6PM ballet class, planning to use the nearby Lake Miramar loop for a twilight run.  Quin loves these sessions, so we stuffed his bike in the trunk and he went with me.

Bailey would be done at 7:30, so I knew I'd have about an hour and 15 minutes to work with.  Plus, the weather was actually nice.  Scattered clouds, mild temperatures and, amazingly, minimal winds.  Quin and I set off at about 6:15 and the notion I had was to run a relaxing 8:30-ish pace for a lap (4.92 miles) and then calculate how far around I could get a second time before having to turn around to get back to pick up Bailey.  The first mile clocked in at 8:15, and that would wind up being the slowest mile over the 8.67 miles logged.

I not only felt good, I felt invigorated.  I was afraid that I'd gained a pound or two over the course of the 3-day field trip with no strenuous exercise.  The kinks worked themselves out within the first quarter mile and I steadied out at an 8-minute/mile pace over the first 3 miles.  During that time, 3 guys passed me who were cruising along at a pretty good clip, and that got my competitive juices flowing.  Even though I wouldn't try to match their speed, I did find myself throttling up just a bit and I started logging quarters that were well under 2 minutes each.

I skipped the water fountain as we passed the parking lot and continued on through the starting point, which was the 1/4 mile post.  I called out to Quin that we'd run to the 2-mile point and turn around.  That would add another 1.75 to the counterclockwise trip, and either 1.75 to 2 on the return trip, depending on where I chose to stop.

I'd been running at a sub-8 minute/mile clip since around mile 3 or 4, and at the turnaround point, I'd covered 6 3/4 miles.  I decided to see what I had in me for a mile, so I ran about as fast as I could while keeping good form.  I did a 7:05 mile, which is a ways from my best mile time, but pretty good after what was, in essence, a decent tempo 10K+.

I ran the final mile comfortably, back down to an 8-minute/mile pace and finished at the 0 marker, for a total of 8.67 miles in 1:06:51 and an average pace of 7:43.  I felt that was pretty much the same effort as my Sunday half marathon race pace, and I think I could have put in another 5 miles at that rate.  I was pretty pleased, both about getting in that amount of mileage and at being able to keep that pace without feeling wiped out. Even as of this posting several hours later, I don't feel any tightening in my legs or hips.

With such a compressed amount of time to log miles before Sunday's long run, I'm somewhat scrambling to at least accumulate 22 miles over the Thursday, Friday and Saturday time frame so that my long run constitutes no more than 50% of my weekly miles.

This morning, I put in 5 miles on the Maranatha track, doing 3x1 mile repeats.  I had hoped to do 4, but I had to be off the track by 8AM and ran out of time.  Here's the skinny:
0.5 mile warmup in 4 minutes (8:00 pace)
1.0 mile in 6:47
0.5 mile recovery interval (8:00 pace)
1.0 mile in 6:56
0.5 mile recovery interval (8:00 pace)
1.0 mile in 7:05
0.5 mile recovery interval/cooldown (8:15 pace)

If I get to the gym later for some long-neglected strength training, I may put in another 10-12 minutes on the treadmill just to knock out that final mile, even though it won't really serve the same purpose as if I'd done it as part of the mile repeat workout.  Maybe I should do 2 sets.  We'll see.

On Saturday AM, an easy paced 6-mile loop through 4S Ranch should be about right.  That'll be just a little short of 22 miles in 3 days.  I'm afraid that if I try to add anymore, like maybe a 2nd session today of 4-6 miles, I'll push myself too far and risk ruining the chances of success to run the 22 miles on Sunday without bonking.

I'm really going to focus on running the 22 miles on Sunday at a 9:15-9:30 pace.  I have to do that to preserve my energy and my legs if I have any hope of pushing past 18 without a lot of anguish.  It's really important, I think, that this 20+ miler and the one planned for two weeks from this weekend be successful.  I'm coming up on 5 weeks to go until the Rock 'n' Roll marathon so these are my final training weeks.  I don't feel I'm quite there yet in terms of readiness.  Perhaps I'll never feel that way until I actually finish the marathon.  I just need a little more endurance training and confidence building.  I'm not sure what I'll do if either of the final two 20+ milers turn out to be poor outings.

Need to adopt a positive mental attitude and stop fixating on the negative.