going long

Ah the weekely long run. The staple of marathon training. Nice to be able to get out to trails to get the miles in, as the week is filled with pounding the pavement. Anyway, arrived at McAlpine just after 8am to join David, Jason, and Mike Mitchell for a run. David had already started, as had Jason, and Mitchell was going to join and get a maintennce run in. His long run would be the next day.

As the week has found my legs empty and tired, I was hoping the day off yesterday would serve me decently in an effort to get in 18 or so miles.

The pace started off easy, and I could tell my legs felt better than they had. We ran out on the greenway to the course and back, and met up with Jason. Some got water and gel, but I just used the bathroom and was ready to keep going. 6+ miles into, we set off again, this time perhaps a little bit faster, and did another loop where we came back to the lot, as David was finished. He had just run his farthest training run at 22 miles. Now, being 13+ miles into the run, I stopped to take some GU Chomps and was ready to finish. Jason did a couple miles with me, then he was finished. He too had done 22 for the day.

With only a few miles to go before I hit my goal, I decided to add on a little more on the greenway, as I was doing my 4th out and back on that stretch of the trail. Ended up with 19 miles for the day, and the pace was stronger at the end.

The run wasn't too brutal, and I can say it was fine. Check out the splits:

Miles: 19
Time: 2:26:37
Pace: 7:43

Miles for week: 51