Notes
Commuter rail LR, took the 6:45 train from Back Bay out to Framingham and ran 20 miles back to the finish. Planned on doing 6-16 @ goal MP, wanted to aim for 6:05 average (round number sub-2:40). Started the tempo with Brendan M and was planning on meeting up with Norcross a few miles in (he was doing his whole run at 6:00), but that didn't really work out - Brendan had hamstring issues and had to pull up and Norcross went into a DDs when we saw him. Feel pretty good about this run. There was a decent headwind the whole time which definitely slowed things down, but I still averaged 6:05.x for the 10 mile segment, which is solid given the conditions and that this is probably the toughest stretch of the course. On the negative side, I felt pretty rough the whole way - quads felt very dead from the start of the tempo, even the first fast mile felt tough (didn't really ease into it, but still). After the first climb I was really feeling it and had to take a mental break, took a Vanilla bean GU which I think helped, but was able to collect myself with a slower mile and then take on the rest of the hills. Definitely faster than I will need to be on Patriots Day over the hills, was working hard but stayed confident and was always able to recover on the backside of the hills.
Going in, I had hoped this run would be really easy, but maybe that was misguided - I hadn't worked out since NBHM and had another fairly low mileage week, but on the other hand it was only a week since NB, and I was going off of a few days of low sleep given the wedding and travel. I'm choosing to take this as a positive, that I was able to run an aggressive pace over some tough miles of the course despite being fatigued going in, and still come away feeling pretty strong - I certainly could have gone longer. Just need to be confident in my training on race day - as long as I execute properly, there will be points where I'm going to feel tapped, but just need to relax and work through those patches and I will be okay.