Long run and Speed Work

I hate to say it but this week I have been slacking a little on the running side. Looks like I will end up with only three days of running but still have almost 20 miles in. Not really a big deal to me as the quality of the runs is what counts for me and they have all been good.

I had already blogged a little about Mondays lunch run. Ended up resting Tuesday and had Fire Department stuff Tuesday night. Wednesday is suppose to be my tempo run so I put all my numbers in the McMillan Running Calculator and it said I should run my tempo runs between a 9:40 and 10:05 pace. Sounds about right. So I told Annette we would shoot for a 9:40 pace after a 1 mile warm up. Well, the weather was not in our favor. It had gotten hot for a noon time run. It was 65+ degrees and we were really not used to that. First mile I tried to keep things slower. Ended up being a 10:04. Hey tempo pace upper end. Second mile was a 9:48 and the third mile we really picked up the pace and mine ended up being a 9:24. Actually too fast, but for average pace I ended up with 3.1 miles @9:45 so I was dead on tempo. Afterwards Annette and I both commented how hard the run was. It felt more like race pace, but I know it was because of the warm temps, plus we were still recovering some from the 15k.

Thursday my foot was a little sore so I took off and Friday is almost always a rest day. Saturday called for a 13.1 mile long run with the Cruisers on the Little Rock Marathon 1/2 route so I figured it wouldn't hurt me to have some extra rest days. I like to listen to my body and now when it says something hurts, I don't run.

Saturday was looking like a not so fun run, it was raining Friday and calling for rain and cold Saturday. Not another 15k day I thought. It was Jane's birthday so this run was dedicated to celebrating her birthday. We met the group at the Clinton Library and just after 7:30am we were off and running with right at 25 Cruisers. We had a good large group which was nice since some of the areas we were running in were not so nice. Temps were around 39 degrees.

It started drizzling somewhere around the 2-3 mile mark. Not bad at all, just enough to to make my hat drip a little but not enough to get my feet wet. Ended up being me, Annette and Jane in our little pace group. There were probably 3 or 4 other groups depending on pace and we had 4 bikers out running support if we needed it. First 4 miles were awesome and I kept the girls pacing between 10:30 and 10:40. Took a bathroom break just past mile 4 and then it was a lot of stop and go dealing with red lights and traffic. This slowed our pace some but we were not trying to push it at all. This route also has lots of "inclines" and it always seemed like more ups than downs. The rain started getting worse around mile 9 but never just a downpour. By mile 11 I could feel the ball of my foot starting to get a blister. I think it was because I had taped my foot up for the Plantar and with all the stop and go at the intersections, it was causing the ball of my foot to get a lot of extra use. The girls also started having issues around 11 so we seemed to slow down a lot. Just before mile 13 the girls called the "Scarlata Rule", we were stopping out run at 13.1 and walking the rest of the way in. Which worked out great giving us almost .7 for a cool down walk. Afterwards we met up with the group at the Rivermarket for breakfast, coffee and just hanging it.

Even though conditions were cold and wet again, I had an awesome run and felt great the whole way. I could have ran much faster but I wanted to stay close to the girls. If things will hold together I should have a great 1/2 time in two weeks and possibly a big PR. Just never know what race day will bring though. Last year it was extremely warm temps so times were bad.

Overall, 13.1 miles in 2:26 was not bad for me in a training run. My PR for the 1/2 is 2:18 so I'll be shooting for a 2:10 or better. Little Rock is really not a PR course but I'm gonna try.

Annette and Jane running downtown



Jane and Annette in front of the Governors Mansion right at mile 10



Me and Annette at the Governors Mansion