Unseasonably Warm Long Run

It hit 83 degrees yesterday. That's too warm for running. (Well, not really, but my ideal is around 50 degrees.) It's definitely too warm for April 5th in MN.

Before it was that warm, I headed out for 11 miles:

My "go to" out-and-back route along the river.

I did my normal long run: a few miles of warm-up, 6 miles "at pace" in the middle, and then some cool-down. I started fast in the warm-up, and then the middle 6 miles were feeling pretty good ESPECIALLY for the day after eating lots of Easter crap at my mom's and mother-in-law's place!

My middle 6 miles had half-mile splits of 3:12, 3:16, 3:15, 3:12, 3:09, 3:07, 3:10, 3:06, 3:05, 3:11, 3:05, and 3:02 which totaled 37:54.78 (6:19.13/mile pace). That felt good! I had another run like that 4 weeks ago where I averaged 6:19 for the middle 6 miles, and those have been my 2 fastest outdoor long runs of the year.

2 mile warm-up (but still moving good!), miles 2-8 faster, then cool-down for 3 miles.


A van didn't look my way while I had the walk symbol as he rolled through a red light to turn
right at mile 9.8, and then I ran off pissed off while running up a large hill around 7:00 pace.

(After a good run with some pace work, I'm usually running up that hill slower than 8:00/mile. So I was jazzed up after glancing off this guy's passenger side front bumper. I'm not surpised to see I was running around 7:00s up that hill yesterday.)

And the knee pain I mentioned in Saturday's post was TOTALLY fine for the run, and barely present the rest of the day. Woo hoo! Hoping for some effort on the bike today (with non fear of hurting my knee more!).