A Decent Long Run

Monday's long run wasn't anything great, but it just felt good. I posted this later in the day:

Spotting turkeys and the bald eagle "couple" are all good omens on my runs.

My "go to" long run is around 11 miles with 6 miles "at pace" in the middle: a 2.5 mile warm-up, then straight into 6 harder miles (working to descend the pace, so not starting TOO hard), then straight into about a 2.5 mile cool-down.

My "pace" miles didn't feel great at the start, and they weren't that fast. I ran the first 3 with half mile splits of 3:21, 3:17, 3:14, 3:16, 3:13, and 3:11 (which averages 3:15/split or 6:31/mile).

Something happened when I turned around where I just upped the pace. And then held on to it. My split after turning around was a MUCH FASTER 3:03. It was around that point that I figured I'd go for 6.5 "pace" miles intsead of just 6. So the goal was to keep them faster like that AND to add in an extra half mile. So my last 7 half-mile splits after turning around were 3:03, 3:04, 3:02, 3:06, 3:06, 2:59 and 2:59.

The first half averaged 6:31 pace, and the last half averaged 6:05 pace!

An out-and-back run with the "pace" miles being splits 5 through 18.

So "pace miles" at 6:18/mile pace are on the better side for an outdoor long run for me. The last few weeks of long runs before this averaged between 6:19 and 6:27/mile for those pace miles. This was my 2nd fastest OUTDOOR long run in the last 13 months! (Only January's long run in Florida had faster middle miles.) Most pace miles have been around 6:20-6:25/mile in the last year.

I need to mix in a few longer runs with "pace" miles that AREN'T descending like this. I'm good at descending runs, and it's starting to be too prevalent - I feel like I'm overtraining that skill. I need to suffer a bit more early on and then learn to hold on through that pain and not start easier and just build until the finish. What I'm currently doing is a good (running) skill to have, but I'm "training" it TOO much. I need to learn to suffer early on as well.