(Appropriately) Humbling Long Run

I've been SUPER happy and VERY SURPRISED in my 10 mile training. I've had more workouts that are faster than those in 2010 when I ran my PR 10 mile (of 59:05), but I don't believe for one moment that I'm in better shape now. And I finally had an appropriately humbling long run.

Yesterday was a pretty normal looking long run for me: it was 2 miles of warm-up, 1 mile "building" a bit faster, and then 5 hard miles before a cool down. That looks very familiar to what I've been doing as my long run over the past 4 years or so. Normally, I do 2.5 miles easy, and then kind of try to negative split the next 6 miles harder. So THIS run had an EASIER first hard mile, but then HARDER right away for the next 5 miles.

I was aware of my splits from 14 years ago: 6:10, 5:55, 5:58, 5:55, and then a FAST 5:28. I wondered if I'd be able to stay fast for 5 miles, and then how much I'd be able to kill that final mile - I figured I wouldn't be NEARLY as fast in that final mile this time, but could I keep the first 4 miles a bit faster this time to make up for it? (This was not meant to be a negative split run - just a hard run for those 5 miles.)

My "building" mile was just a little faster than in 2010, but I wasn't trying to create any sort of cushion in that mile.

My first hard mile was 6:07, which was a bit faster than my 6:10 in 2010! But now the goal was to get them under 6:00!...

... Unfortunately, my next half-mile split was 3:05, and then I finished that mile with a 3:02. So it was another 6:07 mile. At that point, I was behind compared to my 2010 self.

I got under 6:00 for the final 3 miles, but not by much (not by enough). I finished those hard 5 miles with a 5:56, a 5:53, and then an ALL OUT 5:59... dang.

In 2010, I ran those 5 miles in 29:26.

Yesterday, I ran those 5 miles in 30:02.

That's a big difference.

Again, like I stated in my last post, having my Garmin giving me half-mile splits helped keep these from being TOTAL TRASH. The extra info helped keep me a bit stronger. But I just didn't have any gas left for anything greater in that last half.

One thing that could have affected this run is a hard ride I did 2 days prior. I was getting antsy as I hadn't biked hard for two weeks: it had been since the Square Lake Sprint Triathlon. So I headed out for a longer ride with 4x5 mile intervals.

At a turn-around point, with soaked feet. I had checked the forecast... there was a
ONE PERCENT CHANCE OF RAIN. But it poured for a few minutes out there. Damn it.


Later along the river on Water Street. (Covered in water.)


Post-ride caprese/bruschetta thing that Henry and I like!
(With 3 varieties of tomatoes and basil all from our garden.)


Note the lower right: 80 degrees, raining, and lightning.


My workout looked similar to one the end of August: intervals from 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, and 7-8.

Intervals 1, 2, and 3 were faster than when I did this a month ago, but then the 4th was a little slower as I had a strong wind at my back for that one last month:

#1: 23.5 mph vs 21.8 mph
#2: 20.7 mph vs 19.7 mph
#3: 21.6 mph vs 20.6 mph
#4: 22.9 mph vs 23.4 mph

I like to do a workout like that on fast, straight trails, but it's also nice to do it on "normal" roads where there are random hills and other issues to tackle while trying to be fast. I didn't used to train like this, and I think that's helped my bike speed recently.

So maybe that ride was why my legs couldn't move as fast as I wanted in yesterday's run. I'll only be riding easy between now and race day in 12 days.