LONG and HARD

Get your mind out of the gutter.

Last week was my last LONG and HARD run for the TC 10 Mile. I ran easier for 2.5 miles, picked up a pace a bit as a "building" mile for the next mile (6:42), and then tried to descend the following 5 miles.

It was a warm morning: mid-70s and humid before sunrise SUCKS in Minnesota in mid-September. I came to terms with that by throwing any thoughts of fast splits out the window. I figured I'd still try to negative split the run, but I'd just be OK with the times being slower.

I sweated through it, and my "5 descending miles" only lasted through 4.5 miles, but they descended: 6:24, 6:22, 6:19, 6:18, and then a final half mile of 2:57 (which SHOCKED me as I was dead). Ideally (on a NOT hot and humid run), I'd be shooting for these to starting around 6:15 and dropping under 6:00 quickly.

My toe was sore afterwards, and it looked like this:

Oww.

And then 2 days ago, it didn't look much better:

This seems to happen on hot and sweaty runs. Dang.

Well, happy to have that workout done, even if I did have to cut the hard miles a half mile short.