Notes
Yesterday ended up being a pretty crazy day, so I missed a run. A little disappointed but not a big deal - it would have been 5 miles at most. Probably better to get a little bit extra rest while working an 11 hour day anyway.
At the start of today's run my stomach felt a little rough and I wasn't sure if that would be a developing storyline for the rest of the run or not. Thankfully, everything settled early on. I found a port-o-john about 40min into the run which was perfect time. Beside that, we had no issues. Started the run in Wheaton and headed east on the path. Slowly built into the run and tried not to get too carried away. This is a great stretch of path for a long run because you have plenty of drinking fountains, there are a lot of people to pass and the scenery is constantly changing. Made it all the way out to Elmhurst before turning around and taking the same way back. Considered heading taking the Great Western Trail northwest and then improvising a route back south to downtown Wheaton at some point. I decided against it though because I didn't want to accidentally logging two and a half hours this morning simply because I felt like being a trailblazer. I switched up the route on the way back a little bit by turning off toward Glenbard West HS and doing a loop around the lake that is just north of their track before heading back to the path. The point of that wasn't so much for the change of scenery as it was for a respite from the mile markers which seemed to be getting farther and farther apart (amazing how uphill the stretch from 355 to Wheaton can feel late in a long run). Got to a little bit less than two miles left and noticed that a guy running a pretty solid pace was about 30sec ahead of me. In my mind I pretended that he was the leader going into the last two miles of the marathon and I needed to catch him. It took about three tries at a surge to finally get my legs to respond but eventually I was able to catch him and then finish the last half mile or so. Nice to have a rabbit to finish with.
Splits:
7:26, 7:02, 6:38 (probably the most downhill part of the whole route), 6:51, 6:46, 6:45, 6:39, 6:35, 6:34, 6:59, 6:48, 6:50, 6:59, 18:42 (Glenbard West detour), 6:39
PS - posting those is the first time I looked at them and I am really encouraged by how naturally a kept building to sub 6:40 pace. It's a mere 5 weeks until the marathon but, in spite of my doubts from past weeks, I think I'll actually be in modestly good shape come race day. It was just a few short weeks ago that 10miles under 70min felt like a huge accomplishment.