Good Long Run

I mentioned in last weekend's post that I hoped to throw down a little effort during my long run this week. And in my "6 month in review" post from early Monday, I noted that I hoped to run 8 miles as well. AND I DID BOTH OF THOSE!!!

This long run felt good for 3 main reasons:

First, it was my longest run in 9 weeks! It was still "only" 8 miles when my long runs for the 30+ weeks before that were 10-11 miles (as graphed out in this post from Monday), but it just felt good getting to that distance.

Second, there was no tightness in my achilles at the end of this run. The majority of runs in the last 3-4 weeks went until I felt my achilles was starting to get tight, but this one stopped when I had covered enough miles. No other issues!

And third, I worked in a little speed. All winter, my treadmill long runs were something like "2.5 miles easy, then 6 miles starting at 8.9 mph speeding up by 0.1 mph every 1/2 mile (so topping out at 10.0 mph), then cool down for 1.5-2.5 miles." All my treadmill runs since this injury over the last 2 months had been easy to easy/moderate between 7.6 and 8.2 mph.

But Monday's run got a little faster: it was similar to my last 2 months of treadmill running for the first 3.5 miles (working up from 7.6 mph to 8.2 mph over that stretch), but then I worked my way up to 8.8 mph over the next 3.3 miles. So still not NEARLY as fast as my "normal" running, but it still felt good to be running with a bit more effort. AND to finish with my leg feeling good!

It looked like this in my training log (with 1/2 mile splits noted):

8.0 miles in 58:50 (7:21 pace overall)

TREADMILL, and FIRST EFFORT IN A WHILE!!! Slowly added speed, still "ending" fast work where I usually start (so still slow), but more effort than in the last 7 weeks.

Same as last many runs before speeding up: 7.6 mph for 1 mile, 7.8 for 0.75, 8.0 for 0.75, then up to 8.2 (which is where I usually hold it). Did 8.2 for 1 mile, and then upped it every 0.5 mile: 8.4 (bigger jump), then 8.5, 8.6, 8.7, and 8.8 which I held for 1.3 miles before easing up to 7.6-7.8.

3:56, 3:55, 3:50, 3:47, 3:44, 3:39, 3:39, 3:34, 3:31, 3:29, 3:26, 3:24, 3:24, 3:40, 3:55, 3:49.

No tightness! Felt good!!

My "faster" miles still averaged only 6:56/mile when usually it's 6:20-6:30 for twice as far, but it's all just a step in the right directon!