Notes
Very encouraging run as I never intended do push the pace. My goal was to see how many sub 8s I could run in this without pushing too hard. But after about 4 miles it became the goal to see if I could stay sub 7:30 without pushing too hard.
I feel like I'm starting to see results of strength gain as my stride just had a lot more power in it which makes concentration on foot fall, hip and hamstring work a lot easier. I still get sloppy at times, but my current sloppy is better than my good form 3 weeks ago.
It's interesting to compare this to my last 18 mile run which was about 7:20 pace, of course the weather was nicer today which is a big difference, but I really pushed on that run and I never pushed on this run except the last 2 miles just enough to keep them sub 7, and I finished off with 3 sub 7s versus the last run which finished off with 3 in the 7:40s.
With traveling tomorrow, and again next weekend, it will be hard to get two solid efforts in next week which is a shame because there aren't a lot of opportunities to get good training in before the race, but at least I'm going in the right direction and feel like I have a long stretch of seeing improvement.
Splits:
7:53
7:48
7:47
7:29
7:29
7:27 Drink
7:24
7:20
7:20
7:14
7:11
7:19 Drink
7:21
7:21
7:23
6:52
6:56
6:56