Great run to finish off a great week. I hit the 20 mile mark for the first time in my training and hitting a milestone like that is always very encouraging. I was reading last night about long runs and the pace that they should be run at. It was basically saying to run at a speed 20% slower than you anticipate running in your race. I hope to run at a 7 minute/mile pace come race day(not sure how realistic that is yet) so I calculated that I should run about at about an 8:24 pace on my long runs.
With that knowledge in mind I set out to run 8 miles this morning. Its amazing how difficult my runs seem to be when I actually pull the pace back, I seem to feel the burn a little more when I would expect the opposite. Anyway, I went out on the first mile and ran it in about 7 and a half minutes to get warmed. Then I pulled back to an 8:20 pace and ran at this speed for the next 6 and a half miles or so. The last half mile was quicker, but not blazing and when the dust cleared I had run 8 miles in 1 hour 5 minutes and 19 seconds. I am very pleased with this right now and am excited to build on it. At the 8 mile mark I could have kept going, but I knew I would pay for it as my body has never run that distance before.
This was a great run and even though my legs were pretty dead about a half hour after I finished the run I felt really good about everything. I guess I ended up running at about an 8:10 pace and had I continued this would translate into a 1 hour 47 minute half marathon. If I can run that right now, then I hope I can easily shave more time off between today and June 20th.
Distance: 8 miles
Time: 65 minutes 19 seconds
Weekly Total: 20 miles
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