Suffering Sunday

I'm beginning to realise that all those numbers in my running schedule may look good in excel, but each one of them actually needs to be run. And the cells that contain big numbers take some considerable time and effort. Today's number was 19. And not just a simple 19, a 19 followed by 9FM, which means the final 9 miles are to be run at marathon pace.

So off I go, hoping for 10 miles at about 8-8:15 minute pace, and then 9 miles at 7:09 pace. Weather is perfect (sunny, no wind, 50 degrees), the course has some hills, 1 big one thru mile 9 and another thru mile 13, so one slow and one fast.

First 10 go by fine and I'm thru the slow part (10.3 miles at 8:01 pace) and it's time to pick it up. First 1.5 miles are easy to run in the low 7's as they are slightly downhill/flat. Then it climbs back up to 400' and as I try to keep the effort up I can feel my heartrate climbing fast (jumps from 155 to 165 pretty much instantly). As I reach the top I'm running slow at 7:45 (36 seconds off pace) which is aboout right for a big hill. I keep the effort level and pretty soon I'm running around 6:40-6:50 as it flattens and starts downhill. Take another gel and some water down the hill (which is not easy when running fast) and then try to keep things on track for the 5 miles home.

Manage to hold sub 7 thru about 16 miles and then I have an uphill mile; not huge, but steady and I was slowed right down to 7:30 pace. A tough mile! As it flattened out I picked it up again and finished fast with a 7:05 mile. Total was 18.76 miles in 2:23:18 (7:38 pace) - 10.3 at 8:01 and 8.46 at 7:11.

Felt good to running around 7 minute pace after almost 19 miles. Now all I need to do is add a 7.45 mile run at 7:38 pace to the end of that and I've run my Boston qualifying marathon.

Here's the elevation, heartrate and split paces.....

With an easy 8 yesterday my weekly total was just over 63 miles. My first time ever North of 60 and I'm feeling pretty strong. It's now time for an easy cutback week with just 44 miles planned (although it contains a sub 20 minute 5k pace run at the track on Thursday) as I prepare myself for my super-stretch-aint-gonna-happen-no-way-in-hell goal of sub 40 minutes for a 10k on New Year's Day.