Two "Longest" Runs: 1 Good and 1 OK

Well, my 2 longest runs are in the bank before my 10 mile "race" in 10 days!

Last Monday, I crossed over the 10 mile threshold for the first time in over 13 months! I did 1 mile of warm up, 1 mile "building," and then 6 miles "at pace" before a 2.6 mile cool down to total 10.6 miles:

My boring 5 mile "straight south and back" run with LOTS of little add-ons.

My harder miles had splits of 6:45, 6:44, 6:33, 6:29, 6:32, and 6:16, totaling 39:22.67 (6:33.78/mile average). That's not a perfect descend, but it was still quite nice! I felt good after that run.

Oh, and I happened to weigh myself that morning. Then I went for my run. Afterwards, I got in the house and had a big glass of water (like maybe around 12 oz) and then I went to shower and thought I'd weigh myself again. After chugging that water, I was still down 2.4 lbs! So really, I had lost more like 3+ lbs during that run. Wow!

Then a few days ago, I wanted to do a similar workout, but go a bit farther and hit 11+ miles. (This could be a problem, but I've had no variety in my long runs: they've all been "ehh... I guess I'll just run some middle miles at pace...") I felt decent throughout this run - maybe better than the week before! But when I finished, I noticed that I ran 5 sec slower/mile, and that might be IS why I felt better. So that was a bit of a bummer. (Being it was my last LONG run, it would have been the time to push the pace a bit more... but I'm SURE I was concerned about running that far, so I subconsciously backed off the pace a bit as to not kill my body.) My 6 "pace" miles were 6:46, 6:39, 6:45, 6:47, 6:22, and 6:29, totaling 39:52.23 (6:38.5/mile average). Notice my last 2 miles were a bit faster, but nothing like my nice overall descend from the week before. I'm still holding on to the idea that "at least I felt good" even if it wasn't as fast/hard as it should have been.

Similar to last week's run, but more down Marshall to start,
and a bit more down Randolph as well (but a little less down Grand).


I rarely get goosebumps post-run, but I got chilly right away after this long run!

Let's see what this yields in 10 days!

Here's more on my race predictions/thoughts from last week if you missed it.