great way to finish the long runs
Today’s 20 mile/32km long run plain and simple ROCKED! Here are some stats:
1k to 16k: 5:48 minutes per km/9:16 minutes per mile
17k to 32k: 5:12 minutes per km/8:19 minutes per mile
Overall: 5:29 minutes per km/8:46 minutes per mile with total running time of 2:55:29.
You can see a picture of the kms here.
I didn’t measure heart rate today (one less thing to think about) but breathing rhythm was great. I didn’t think much about my breathing in the first half of the run but did a check every mile or two after that point. The pattern was consistently: breath in on a left-right and breath out on a left-right all the way to the last kilometer which we ran in 4:48.
Do you remember my September 4th 20 miler? That was the one I didn’t fuel on. The one where I felt like crap most of the way and the one where Tom chirped and sang about how great he felt all 20 miles!
Today, was sort of a reversal of fortunes. Well, not entirely since Tom felt pretty good most of the way but he did struggle in the last few kilometers whereas I seemed to just get stronger and stronger. I honestly could have gone further. No problem. The difference? I fueled today and Tom did not (he ran late in the morning and didn’t have time to pack gel).
Another thing about todays run was that we used our “winter” route which is a LOT flatter than the route we’ve been using all summer. It was a nice treat and great way to feel strong for the last long run and it really showed us how much strength we’ve gained in running the other route.
So the really long runs are “in the bag” and all that remains now is speedwork speedwork speedwork as Marty would say!
One more thing. I have almost NO residual soreness from the run. I actually felt like I could have gone for another 5 miles only a half hour after we finished! I’ve NEVER felt that good after a 20 miler.
Rock on!!!
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Wednesday September 22, 2004 @
[...] he first 10k! 7km at marathon race pace and boy did I ever suck. Funny how that goes huh? One day, on top of the world and then the next run feels like you’ve never [...]