Notes
8 miles with last 3 at 7:00.
Another warm one this morning. I tried to keep the first miles scaled back so that I didn't overdo it before having to run a bit harder. I felt better than yesterday but not awesome. I think that's just par for the course with this stage of training. I remember after Rocket City it took awhile to feel smooth again. I felt less tight than yesterday but still not super fluid in my stride.
I honestly have been a bit nervous about running 7:00 pace for three miles, especially in the heat. I had to keep reminding myself this morning-'this is slower than your marathon pace!!' That helped me put it in perspective. It should feel like an effort but it shouldn't kill me. I also didn't feel like driving so I ended up running it on a fairly hilly route. The first quick mile was up Belmont which I was nervous about but it ended up being fine.
The fast miles felt way way better than I was expecting which was really motivating. I was expecting to kind of die, especially with the heat. I ended up going way too fast in the first mile and then hanging there. I guess I was kind of trying to bank time at the beginning of the first mile because I knew the second half would be up Belmont. But I didn't slow much on the hill so I ended up too fast. Then, I got used to that pace, I guess, because it was hard to put the brakes on. It's amazing to me how high my HR is in the heat because the pace actually felt okay. Normally a HR in the 180s would be 5-10k race effort but it didn't feel like that.
This was a nice encouraging run. I'm out of shape for sure but all is not lost!