Great Long Run!

My last few posts have had titles that end in exclamation points, which is a good sign! (First a long birthday ride, second a big (PR) training week, and finally some nice swims.)

Last summer up north "at the lake," I had my best long run ever. That run was 12 miles with the middle 6 JUST UNDER 6:00 / mile pace: 35:55 for those 6 miles, or 5:59.17 / mile. However, it was on a flat trail with less than 1/2 of the elevation gain compared to my normal long run route. Normally, my middle 6 "faster miles" are somewhere between 6:05 and 6:20 pace.

On Monday, after my big training week and while my family was still gone on a trip, I got up a bit later for my long run. The weather was about perfect in the upper 30s, and there was a slight headwind on the way out and tailwind on the way back (the way I like it). Just over a half mile into my harder 6 miles in the middle, I passed a collegiate runner wearing U of M gear - that pushed me to keep the pace up! So for my harder 6 miles in the middle of this 12.26 mile run, my half-mile splits looked like this:

3:05, 3:04, 3:04, 2:59, 3:02, 3:00, 2:57, 2:56, 2:59, 2:59, 2:56, 2:50

= 35:58!!

5:59.67 / mile pace!

18:18 first 3 miles / 17:40 last 3 miles

Sure that's 3 seconds slower than last summer's PR, but I was also in some of the best shape of my life last summer - I had just set 3 lifetime running PRs. AND this run was on my normal "hillier" route.

All half-mile splits were within 0:15, which is pretty good for me! Take out the first and last (slowest and fastest), and the rest were within 0:08 of each other! (Also, taking out the first and last splits makes the MILE splits all within 0:13 of each other.)

I was also happy that I didn't shy away from a final short little hill within the last half-mile like I sometimes do. Sometimes, I turn around a bit later so I can finish before the 1-block climb up to Franklin. Or sometimes I take the side street (Seabury) that keeps me from going downhill and then up that final little gut-buster. But this week, I finished by heading up that nasty hill:

Hill getting from River Parkway up to Franklin.
(Starting/finishing on the bridge at split 5 and 17.)


Out-and-back HARD on the west side of the river.

This was a great start to a week after a solid training week!! Gotta try to keep this rolling!!