BETTER Long Run

After last week's crappy long run (which then prompted me to bike a WHOLE lot), I thought I'd just take it easy and cut back the distance for Monday's long run this week. And it was raining, so I wasn't planning anything great.

But I headed out and found myself passing a pair of runners around the 1 mile mark. I felt totally fine picking up the pace, and thought "maybe I'll just try to keep this up for a few miles... withOUT picking up the pace too much."

I ended up feeling SO MUCH BETTER than my crappy run the week before, and I was running 0:20/mile FASTER. That week of easier running (with more biking) totally did the trick. My "faster" 5 miles (which weren't THAT much effort) had half mile splits of:

3:21, 3:18, 3:12, 3:15, 3:20, 3:17, 3:13, 3:11, 3:16, 3:21
= 32:48.85 for hard 5 miles (6:33.78/mile pace).

I ended up going 8.5 miles. The previous 5 weeks (starting at the end of July) of long runs were 7.0, 7.7, 6.8, 8.1, and 9 miles. So this slight "back off" week is great, and then I might go for about 9.5 for next week's long run.

I came back in the house totally soaked through:

It's hard to tell, but EVERYTHING is soaked.
My shirt had been plastered to my chest for my final few miles.

Note to self: backing off for a bit when you're body is breaking down is always helpful in the long run!