FANTASTIC Back-to-Back Long Runs!!

I posted last week about a good long run I had at the start of that week. This week's was even BETTER!

We had some random (typical) spring weather around here lately (as complained about in this post and this post recently), and the night before this long run was no different. Things HAD BEEN great outside, but then we got rain and snow the night before. It started to melt on the roads, but I still wanted to drive home along River Road (where I wanted to run) after dropping my wife off at work so I could check the conditions:

The trail (on the left) was clear! You can't really tell
here, but the road and trail were both wet (but clear!).


It was 33 degrees all night, but now it was only going to get warmer. No chance of ice!


More "sheltered" areas (like the sidewalks in my
neighborhood and this pic of our side yard) were slushy.

I took off for my standard 11-12 miles with 6 miles "at pace" in the middle, but quickly figured I could run more towards the 12 mile end of that stretch, and MAYBE do 6.5 miles faster. I figured I'd see how I was feeling. After a 2.5 mile warm-up, I upped the pace a bit.

My first mile had half mile splits of 3:14 and 3:07. That was decently fast to start my "faster" miles. Then the next half mile was faster yet (3:04) which REALLY shocked me. I was feeling good and hoping that feeling would last! I told myself I was going for the longer 6.5 miles at pace.

Just after 3 miles into the faster miles when I was about to turn around, it hit me that I was getting warm because I didn't feel any breeze. "Shoot. I've been running straight south for these harder miles, and I'm about to turn back into a decent breeze, aren't I?" Yep.

My next split dropped a little, but the breeze wasn't TOO bad and I figured it might actually help mentally push me faster running into it. I had some NICE splits running north back into the wind! Here was my workout once I wrapped up:

Last week's 6:44 overall pace was oddly fast, so this week's 6:43 was even better.


An out-and-back along the river, with the west bank being the fast miles.


Pace (blue) and heart rate (gray). Fast miles from 2.5-9. A little climb at mile
7.5 kicked my heart rate UP, and then it stayed there until I eased up at mile 9.


As always, my footstikes are better when I run fast (around my ideal of 180 from mile 2.5-9).


I tweeted about the good run and added this because I saw running buddy Evan!

Those middle/faster "at pace" miles were a personal record! I recall 18 months ago when I was happy if I got my pace under 6:20 for 5 miles. This run had 6.5 miles under 6:10! FIRST TIME UNDER 6:10 PACE FOR MY "PACE MILES" IN A LONG RUN!!

3:14, 3:07, 3:04, 3:09, 3:05, 3:01, 3:07, 3:00, 3:02, 3:06, 3:04, 3:02, 2:51 = 39:57.9 for 6.5 miles, which is 6:08.91/mile pace!!

Mile splits of 6:21, 6:13, 6:07, 6:08, 6:08, 6:06, and 2:51 for the last 1/2 mile.

Only one half mile split over 3:09!!

Last week's pace miles were 6:14/mile pace for 6 miles, so I was over 5 seconds faster/mile this week. Feeling good! Hoping this will translate to a fast 10K in a few weeks!