Notes
It seems clear to me that my former ways of obsessive compulsive efforts to maximize my mileage each day for days on end, must cease. I was at first thinking of doing large cycles of mileage with off weeks built in, but now I think the key will be to take true recovery days and focus on big workouts each week. I've really known this all along, but I think I struggled to have much success in the past because my former running mechanics really prevented me from capitalizing on a big workout. Hard to get a great long run in when you can only plod along at 9 min pace. Which was the whole reason I began doing big mileage in the first place, to make up for my inability to train at a reasonable pace.
I think I will be much more free in my training now to really design a structured plan to really jump my improvement.
This run was almost amazing. After yesterday's recovery day, this started off very relaxed and I had no problem locking in mentally to my mechanics. The first few miles were a gradual speed up to roughly 7:10 pace which I held for about 10 miles. After mile 14 though (it was just past 11 am) it started getting warm, and I think the heat and lack of fuel started taking its toll. During the 17th mile I was sick to my stomach and half-vomiting - but worked through it and at least finished the last half mile of the run with some pace again. My legs were a little tired after 12 miles but I think if not for the lack of fuel and the challenge of the heat I would have had no problem maintaining good form concentration.
The nice thing overall about this is that Tuesday when I ran 8:05 pace that was the best 18 miler I had ever done solo by a looong way, and this was much stronger and felt much easier. Tuesday I died to 8:45 pace - today I died to 7:45 pace. Also this was essentially the same pace to the "hard" 12 miler I ran on Monday that started to get me excited again.