Notes
Today was my first real test of my fitness. I took yesterday off to make sure I could put in my best effort. Plan was a 2 mile w/u, then 12 miles at MP (shooting for 7:18-7:21) then 2 miles c/d. The weather was really nice, 56, cool and dry. The warmup went well, 2 easy downhill miles in 8:24 then 8:10. I started right at the 4 mile mark of the Baystate marathon course for my MP miles. This way I could also check my Garmin vs the course markers. Splits were as follows: 7:23, 7:19, 7:18, 7:16, 7:16, 7:16, 7:19, 7:16, 7:20, 7:17, 7:16, 7:08. I knew about 3 miles in I was in good shape because it was a comfortable pace. The garmin helped me keep on pace around the 9th and 10th miles. It is so great to have instant feedback on current pace of each mile. I also found that miles 9 and 10 of the course appear to be a bit long. My Garmin recorded 10.02 miles for miles 4-14 of the course, very close. I felt very good the entire time. My legs felt the pace a little bit near the end but I had plenty in the tank. Including my w/u I went through the half marathon in 1:37:30, which is only 2.5 min off my PR.
My avg HR for the MP miles was between 150 and 151, except the last 2 miles were 155 going uphill. I feel really happy the way my training has gone. I think the extra tempo miles at a higher intensity coupled with the easy miles during the week at a lower intensity is working out well. I did almost the exact same workout exactly a year ago and I ran out of gas after about 7 miles at 7:26 pace and struggled to finish at 8:00 pace.