A Few Decent Long Runs

As I posted on Monday, my "rest week" was over and I've been working on increasing mileage again. Tomorrow (Sunday) is my next long run which should be over 11 miles.

Four weeks ago, I did a long run of 8.4 miles. I ran that entire run a bit "moderate" at 7:14 pace. (Remember, this was just a week after the Minnesota Triathlon, so I was still kind of recovering from that. Was happy that I didn't push it.)

Three weeks ago, my long run was 9.5 miles, and it felt GOOD. I wasn't planning on doing anything special, but at mile 2, I just kept upping the pace. I ended up running my middle 5.5 miles at 6:33 pace.

Two weeks ago, my long run hit 10 miles for the first time in over 18 months. It felt LONG. I'm not used to running that far. I descended the middle 5 miles: 6:58, 6:44, 6:38, 6:38, 6:23, and 6:25 for 6:45 average pace. (Notice I missed descending the final mile, but part of the blame there was a hill - I'm SOOO not hill trained.) It was a bit warm, and I sure didn't try to go "all out." Maybe it was that it was a bit warmer, but I think I felt a lot "rougher" because of the last few weeks of consistently building mileage - I think last week's rest week came at the right time.

So the plan hasn't changed: hit 11+ miles tomorrow, then MAYBE 12 miles next Friday if I'm feeling good, then 9 days of easier runs to rest up for the TC 10 Mile in 2 weeks from tomorrow! Still holding on to my 10 Mile goal of around 1:02. We'll see!