Twenty miles is a long way no matter how you slice it. Last week’s 17 miler was a bit of a letdown because I slipped off pace around mile 14. This week I was determined to stay on pace the entire 20 miles. My biggest concern regarding FIRST, is whether it will give me the endurance I need for a full marathon. Last week I was seriously wondering. Yesterday though, my pace was exactly on, and I was within 16 seconds of my planned pace. Not bad for a 3 hour run.
Now comes the trick… to recover enough to do 3 one mile sprint intervals tomorrow. Here is the quandary for me with FIRST, the key runs and interval runs are based on my 5K run time. Well… I know what that is… so the pace for those is set. The long runs however, are based on your projected marathon pace (PMP). Again… I know what that is for me… 8:38. BUT, if I want to qualify for Boston I have to hit 7:39. In other words, for a 20 mile long run like yesterday where I am supposed to use PMP +60 (9:38 per mile) I used 9 per mile. Right now I am adding an extra 20 seconds to my project time, because I think my body would fall apart if I tried to take the whole chunk at one. In two weeks after an 18 and another 20 mile long run, I think I will drop the long run pace a bit. And then about a month later… I will drop it to my final goal.
Next Sunday I will be camping, and shortly after my 18 mile run I will have to drive 6 hours back home. Actually… I think I will recruit my wife for the drive so I can take a snooze. Nothing like a nap after a long run.
I am a morning runner now. My work schedule has changed and I have time to run in the morning before work. That would have been tough before because I was already getting up at 4:50. =) Something about getting up at 3:15 to run did not appeal to me. Since it is summer right now… running in the AM is quite nice. It will be a different story this winter.
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