10 Miles Pace on Palomar Airport Rd

Assignment: 10 miles at marathon goal pace.

Really?  Not too long ago, such a run would have been a weekend long run.  Not only was I going to try to keep a planned marathon pace, but it's also coming on the heels of yesterday's moderately strenuous run.  Normally, I'd think about trying something like this after a day of rest or at least a light day.

But I did it.  I chose, both for convenience sake and to preview a portion of the marathon route, an out-and-back course that follows Palomar Airport Rd west and east, and also the stretch of Avenida Encina between Palomar Airport Rd and Cannon.  I wanted to see how the east bound leg with its elevation change would feel like at pace after about 45-60 minutes of running.

Good plan, except on marathon day the route will be closed to traffic.  On this day, the stoppages at numerous lighted traffic intersections was a nuisance and bothersome break in the tempo.  It was a little dangerous too, since I was almost hit by a car at the Aviara crossing.  (I was crossing on the Walk signal with cars stopped at the light, but some black convertible Mercedes came swiftly up the right hand turn lane just as I was there and had to screech to a stop.  Glad I wasn't wearing headphones because I might not have heard him and gotten clipped.)

Other than traffic concerns, it wasn't a bad day.  I was feeling a little fatigue in the hips and quads.  Left ankle felt a little unstable during the final 3 miles and hurt a little bit on the final 1/2 mile.  I kept my heart rate around 140 on the way down toward the coast.  Coming back east, with the hills and accounting for cardiac drift, it was more up around 150+.  Not bad.  I wasn't laboring.  Cardio-wise, I felt comfortable.  It was mostly a matter of leg fatigue. 

I went the entire first half without water.  That's a long time for me.  Coming back, I made a quick detour into the McDonalds on Avenida Encina and downed two small paper cups of water.  The 2-3 minutes stop and water break was refreshing, and when I started up again, the pep had returned to my stride...for awhile anyway.

The climb back toward the east isn't that bad.  The worst part is coming out of the Palomar Oaks business area side street and back onto Palomar Airport Rd from Camino Vida Roble.  Then there's the longish 5% upgrade where I worked my hill intervals a couple of weeks ago.  But it's not bad, and better that it come at that part of the race rather than later.  The trip to the west is mostly flat and moderately downhill.  About the only complaint might be if the onshore wind is stiff, but at 8:00 pace that won't be a worry and it might be a welcome way to wick away the body heat. 

Overall, it was a very good run.  Took me about 90 minutes, including warmup and cool down (and all the traffic obstacles).  Best I can tell, using Nike+ data, I had 11 times where I had to stop, slow or wait.

I figure I lost 4-5 minutes because of it, so I'm estimating I covered 10 miles in right about 1:20.  That's faster than my goal marathon pace of 8:20-8:30. We'll see how that affects me on Sunday.  Tomorrow's a rest day.  Sunday: long slow distance of running with target being 2 hrs, 20 minutes...pace to finish.