rocks, hills, wind and bad pizza

Marathon training isn't jiving with duathlon training. I'm just not getting on the bike much. Oh well.

Thursday was a good 10 mile 'tempo' run at 6:40 pace - my training plan called for Marathon pace (MP), but I went faster because it 'felt' right - not too hard, not too easy - I was in the zone for sure. It was very flat course and that had something to do with it, not to mention the 4x5:50 mile repeats on Tuesday made 6:40 pace seem 'easy'.

But today was Saturday and I decided to do my long run today instead of tomorrow because I want to have some fun tomorrow and do some orienteering and mountain biking. All work and no play makes Jesse a dull boy.

So I wasn't quite well rested - it had only been 6 days since my last 20 mile run and only 2 days since my 67min-10miler. My course selection was deliberate - hilly - after all, the marathon will be hilly. My target was 15 miles at MP+10seconds, which means pretty close to a 7min pace.

Friday night we ordered pizza from a place my daughter reluctantly recommended - 'it will be either really good or really bad, depending on who is working that night'. We got really bad - drippy, gooey, greasy. I should have know better, but I ate it, then regretted it. Not a good pre-long run meal.

What I didn't count on for this course - which I had done before - was all of the stinking new gravel on these unpaved back roads; what I also didn't count on was the wind - damn wind.

So I start out pretty good - the first mile is all down hill, but I forgot to turn my autolap 'on' since my last workout, so I take short pause to do that. This pause + strong headwind + not-warmed-up-yet = flat mile 2 was 35 seconds slow! That's a lot to make up! Then I hit the gravel and more head wind on mile 3 - another slow mile. Then I hit the uphills and even more new gravel leading to a slow mile 4 and 5. Not only were these miles slow, but I was pushing myself too hard too early, so I'm already tired with 10 miles to go.

I finally I hit a downhill mile and make up 30 seconds, the next flat mile I'm pretty close to target pace, then more uphill and new gravel ugh. I slog through the next 2 miles losing over 1.5mins.

Never give up - I finished strong, and in my last 6 miles I am able to go faster than target pace, allowing me to finishing the overall run an average of 10 seconds per mile slower than my target.

Now my legs are toast - I hope I can make it out tomorrow!