This morning was my longest run since Eugene last May. 18 miles at 8:39 min/mile pace (2 hours 35 minutes). Never walked a step or took a water break. (Took water with me and drank it on the run). Like last week, the last 6 miles were all sub-MP. Felt good throughout, though the last mile or two was getting hard. I hope I'm not running these MLRs and LRs too fast. I don't want to peak too early. But this pace is grooved right now. Bill

WTG Bill! Spareribs...you need to come to Huntsville to show them a thing or two. Yesterday, while I was at an athletic store buying flippers, in came a guy in a red dress, just to visit, while his team meandered up the hill outside. I peeked out and they were all just walking along, looking like a group of escaped convicts who stole some red clothes from someone. After the visitor left to rejoin his team, I asked the owner why they weren't running, he tried to explain to me...some term I'd never heard, and all the rules that go with it...too complicated. Anyway, they were not going to win American's Next top crossdresser! I did a measly 4.4 this morning, after yesterday's 11.4. Legs are tiiiiiired! Off to Tunica to have some fun!

9 Weeks 'til Boston ! Yikes! 12 miles at 10:30 pace. I had a couple speedy runs this week, and I guess they caught up with me today. That makes 45.2 miles for the week. At this point, I'm alternating medium-long (12 mi) Sundays with long Sundays (18-20). That seems to work well for me in terms of balancing mileage with injury risk. It is gorgeous here today too. The sunshine glinted brightly off of the light dusting of snow we received yesterday.

Nice running Byll, Peter, and Harriet! Great runs yesterday, too. Kudos to Ribs for not only being willing to dress up like that for a good cause but for then posting pictures for the rest of us! A classic. 35F with a good stiff breeze by the water. Shorts were okay, but I needed a hat and gloves. Nice and sunny, though. I did a 20.2 mile “go-with-the-flow” run with no specific pace goal but trying to push a bit. I ended up with a Garmin pace of 7:51. Ironically, adjusted for the real world that’s about a 7:56 pace; almost exactly my goal MP! I can’t do anything above 15 miles without stopping to refill a couple of my water bottles. I try to make it snappy though. I gave up using gels on LRs this cycle and I seem to have adjusted fine.

11@7:58 then a nice 1 mile cooldown walk

Beautiful day here, too -- a bit cooler than NC, though. 13.2 miles, 1:55:42, 8:48/mi, AHR 141 (?!?) (71% mhr) miles@pace(HR) 5@9:16(136), 3@8:51(137), 5@8:18(149) MTA: wow, Tramps! But I have to agree with Steve on this one...

Peter - I just use body glide. Just sayin'...

Tramps..20 mile MP run? ... please be careful!

Thanks for your (and Lou's) concern but I don’t think it was necessarily stupid; here’s why: It was a nice cool day, which makes a big difference for me. This was not my hilly route; just a modest 900-ft elevation change (900 up/900 down) so hills weren’t really an issue. I was running "by feel” without a time goal and with good music on (read: relaxed) so the miles were just clicking by. I never felt like I needed to dig deep to keep going or anything like that; just comfortably hard at times. Also, I was careful to start off with two slower miles and made myself slow down a bit for the last few miles when I realized I was well under MP (7:47 after 15). So, it was just an "on" day and I took advantage of it. Besides, CNY does MP LR's (intentionally) and when I grow up I wanna run like CNY. ETA: Happy birthday, Perch! I was lurking around and...