Last & Longest "Long Run" Pre-TC 10 Mile

Monday was a big final test for me! I didn't get in a long run the week before because it was the Square Lake Sprint Triathlon, and the TC 10 Mile was 13 days away (now TEN days away), so it was time to run long and hard.

I've been doing the majority of my runs indoors as my calf/achillies isn't 100% yet, but I was hoping to go as far as I could outside on Monday: 10.5 miles at least. I took off on this out-and-back route knowing that I could add some more at the end if my legs were feeling OK:

I did a 2 mile warm-up, and then I did 5.5 miles "at pace." Only my Garmin is dead, so I just took splits on my watch at what I considered to be my half-mile markers (which ended up being between 0.47 miles and 0.55 miles, with the "pace" work being 5.59 miles total when I mapped it out later). Here were my half-mile splits:

3:25, 3:27, 3:09, 3:05, 3:15, 3:16, 3:05, 3:10, 3:08, 3:05, 3:09 = 35:21.23 for 5.59 miles.

(Mile splits: 6:52, 6:14, 6:31, 6:15, 6:13, extra 3:09 half mile.)

6:25.68 / mile based on 5.5 miles
6:19.47 / mile based on 5.59 miles

I wasn't THRILLED by that, but I felt pretty good. "Decent" at least. It spurred this tweet:

And then the following day, I had this "Facebook Memory" about my last long run before last year's virtual TC 10 Mile, and it was surprisingly similar:

Nearly the same mileage, with 6 miles at sub-6:40 then and 5.5 miles at 6:20 now.

That made me feel a bit better about what where I was this year after reducing my miles all summer because of my calf/achilles injury.

My training is focused 100% on running between now and the TC 10 Mile! I'm trying to push my mileage as much as I can this week as one final push. Back with some pre-race predictions soon based on training this year vs last year.