Notes
Very nice day for a run, I doubt we'll get too many more sunny Sunday afternoons in the 50s. I just did the Ash Road loop twice for a total of 17.9 miles.
This was a potentially a very stupid run. I did the first half of this run in a seemingly easy pace the ended up being about 7:35 a mile. I definitely could have kept this pace up for another round, and even perhaps another round after that.
When I hit the halfway mark, I grabbed some banana and a drink of water, then started out on the second half. My plan was to do this half harder, perhaps around my goal marathon pace. For whatever reason, I just started cranking out miles at a pace that was a bit unrealistic for a marathon for me. I was doing about 6:50 pace for the first 5 miles, then it dropped to about 6:15 for the next two after that, then 7:16 pace for the final two mile climb to the house. Honestly, apart from that gruesome hill at the end and my odd foray into almost 6 flat pace, I could probably hold 6:50s for a good long time. Potentially a stupid, overly difficult run, but also kind of encouraging.
A good week overall, although I had some days where the mileage was a lot lower than expected. Wednesday I had my bad GI day where I cut short at 4, and Saturday I stopped at 3.5 for no real reason. Next week I plan on either finding a 5k on Sunday or just going to the track and kicking my ass to get a benchmark. I think more mid-week mileage and a shorter Sunday run will be next week's menu.