Week 15 done.

on Monday, September 10, 2007 at 8:31 PM

Thank you all for the birthday wishes!

Did 22 miles on Sunday. One thing that I've been disappointed with this season has been the pace of my long runs. According to Pfitz, for a 3:10 marathon finish, they should be done between 8:00 and 8:45 min/mile. These have usually been at about 8:20 to 8:40 or so this year and still fits into the Pfitz guidelines which isn't too bad, but this is the pace I was doing my long runs last year. For this run last year, I averaged about 8:30 pace, so I was determined today to try and do this at least 15 min/mile faster.

After commenting last week about enjoying running in the rain, i had second thoughts upon waking on Sunday morning cause it was pouring outside. I headed downtown again to do the lakeshore run in prep for race day. I figured that it would be a good day to try out the marathon day race clothing in rainy conditions since I haven't had a chance to really try them out in wet weather. I started the run and it was pretty breezy and cool and I was kinda wishing for the first mile that I'd worn long sleeves but that feeling quickly went away as soon as I warmed up a little. even with the cool and damp conditions, there sure were I lot of people running including Yumke that I saw early in the run. They was also a dragon boat racing tournament of some sort down by the waterfront which caused me to have to detour a bit since they fenced off part of the path. So here are the splits.


Lap Lap Time
Lap Lap Time
1 08:44.4
12 08:04.8
2 08:15.5
13 08:09.2
3 07:48.2
14 08:03.1
4 07:56.7
15 08:08.7
5 08:06.8
16 07:48.0
6 08:13.1
17 08:07.8
7 08:12.8
18 07:55.0
8 08:15.3
19 07:45.7
9 08:06.5
20 07:35.9
10 08:05.7
21 07:18.5
11 08:01.0
22 08:52.3

I ended up picking up the pace towards for the last few miles trying get myself used to what it might feel like on race day to do Boston pace. I'm actually kinda surprised how effortless this run felt. Though I'd like to think it was the training, I think a lot of it had to do with the nice cool, overcast conditions. Total for the week was 51.8 miles.

As the taper begins, this upcoming week is relatively light with the following:

Tuesday: 8 miles including 5x600m @ 5k pace
Wednesday: 5 miles recovery
Friday: 4 miles recovery + 6 strides
Saturday: 8k to 10k tune-up race
Sunday: 16 miles long run

I'm supposed to do a tune-up race on Saturday but there aren't any races nearby. I'm trying to decide whether I should do a 10k time trial around a track and see if I can hit 40:42 which, too be perfectly honest, I don't think I can or whether I should just take the opportunity to do an LT run.

5 comments:

jen said...

Happy Belated B-day!

Beautiful splits on the 22 miler. You are undeniably faster than last year. That run was perfect... a 7:18 split for mile 21? That's got BQ written all over it. Well done.

Sonia said...

Taper already?! Time is freakin flyer!!! Happy late B'day =) Nothing is better than indulging on your Birthday!

Good luck not going crazy over the next few weeks ad watch out that spending $$$

yumke said...

Nice long run. Were you planning on 22 all along? I'm contemplating a long run of that nature in my last long run.

Good luck with tuneup race.. Would you run a 10K time trial around a track? Wow, that's a lot of going in circles!

Arcane said...

I wasn't intending to do 22 miles, only 20 miles with the last one at marathon pace, but mile 20 wasn't quite fast enough, so I ended up doing 1 more slightly faster. That caused me to run 1 mile out of my way though so I had to do a slow 1 mile jog back to the start.

The 22 mile is good cause it simulates the length of time that you're going to be on your feet during the marathon. My goal time is 3:10 and this long run was three hours so it worked out well.

L*I*S*A said...

You did a great job on your 22-miler. I bow to your greatness. :)

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