October 8, 2009
Run: Steady 8M @ Marathon Pace (8.71 mi)
With the snow inbound, I knew I better get out first thing today. That meant running in the drizzle at 30 degrees. So I went to long sleeve Under Armour with TNF Gore-Tex Pro Shell over it. Today would be a good test to see how a race day might go in these conditions. Still went with shorty shorts. Needed gloves too.
The RW plan had Brisk 3M for today. That seemed nice and cute. But the Lucho plan had 8-9 miles at marathon pace. So I went with that. I feel like the more I run at marathon pace right now the better. I need to get settled into a comfortable rhythm holding that pace.
Started out and everything hurt especially my lungs. Felt like I took a day off yesterday! I swear that you get to a point where taking a day off isn’t worth that pain for the first few minutes of feeling so out of it. I quickly kept pushing it up until I was in the high 7s. My plan was to run 2 miles of cutdown at either :30 or :15 before settling into pace. Ended up doing those first two miles at about 7:45 pace. Wind blowing head-on. Jacket was slapping. But I was where I needed to be. My only wish was that it didn’t feel so hard because I can’t hold that one for 24.2 more miles. Muddy roads didn’t help either. My shoes were caked so I had to change my stride up not to slip.
At mile 3, I got back to pavement and took a quick stop at the park. Got a drink and cleaned out my nose then charged ahead. Fresh feeling. Dropped to 7 flat quickly and had to keep slowing myself down through this part of the course. Felt much better about being out there. I was heating up and the rain had stopped. Didn’t need the jacket at that point but I can’t ditch it.
Continued on and pushed my way up the hill back home and held decent pace uphill then brought the mile split back into range on the downhill and kept moving it. Brought it back into the neighborhood and pretend the finish line was ahead and dropped the pace by :30 again. Felt good to be done. Overall pace was 7:31. A few ticks off where I need to be race day but I didn’t get all those miles in that would make up for the cutdown start.
Wish it would have been easier but I braved the conditions and made it happen. Look at me — running in the cold and choosing the harder workout. What have I become? Overall, I am still not happy with how my pace seems to wander. Maybe its just GPS lag. I am trying to focus on the split pace and just use the current pace as a guide to whether I need to speed up or slow down. Learned a few gear things. On race day, if its 30 degrees, I am not wearing the jacket. Its just too much gear for that long of a run.
I got home and I had left my dog locked in my office on purpose. It was raining out and I thought I would spare him a cold wet morning outside while I ran. Turns out he still can’t control himself and he pissed all over my brand new New Balance box that I received yesterday. Luckily the shoes are not wet! So the dog will live to see another day.
I hope we get some warmer weather next week. This coldness removes a major motivation for my desire to run outside.
I went 8.71 miles with an elevation gain of 298 feet in 01:05:33, which is an average pace of 07:31. View my GPS data.
