Monday, February 17, 2014

Half Marathon Tune Up

I didn't run at all yesterday.  I was concerned about how messy the streets might be for the group run.  At this point, I can't have too much rest, as I am doing a slight taper before my half marathon on Sunday.

The plan today was to run my last hard run before the race.  I wanted to at least run 6 miles below goal pace (which I guess is a 6:38).  I want to shoot to break 1:27 for the race.  It typically takes about 10 days to absorb a hard workout, so I won't get any fitness gains from today.  It was more about getting a feel for the pace I can handle and being comfortable and confident on race day.

I almost didn't get out there in the afternoon.  I was tired and didn't feel all that great after lunch.  However, I got my butt out the door.  Since everything is still covered in snow, running the neighborhood roads was really the only option.  It wasn't ideal because of some of the hills, but I had to make it work.

The weather was nice today by comparison to the rest of the winter.  It was about as ideal as I could expect.  It was still only 28 degrees, but it was sunny and there was only a slight breeze.  Since I was running hard, I only opted for one layer.  I wasn't even going to wear and headband or gloves.  However, I ran a partial loop of my neighborhood to warm up and my hands were freezing.  Therefore, I needed to stop at home and get some gloves on.

The warm up mile was great.  I cruised along and felt good.  I was hoping that maybe the legs would feel even faster, but still they were pretty good.  I guess it will take some time to completely recover from 70 miles last week.  That warm up mile was a nice 7:28.  I finished it up just after going back out of the house.

It was now time to pick it up.  I cruised downhill toward the school.  I was going at what I thought was a comfortable pace.  I looked down at my watch and it was around a 6:10.  I backed off slightly.  I ran the short loop around there for the first fast mile and a little more distance.  This was an impressive 6:21 mile.  It was a little faster than I wanted to go, but I didn't feel like I was pushing too hard.  My breathing was a little labored, but that seemed like it was more from the cold air than anything.

Some of the slight hills slowed me down, but I made it up on the downhills.  I was slightly slower at mile 2, but it was still a 6:24 and faster than the 6:38 that I was planning.  I ran hard mile 3 back at a 6:21.  I went out and did a smaller loop rather than the big loop.  I figured that while this way had hills they were better than the big loop.  The hills did slow me and I'm not sure my Garmin was accurate for this 4th hard mile.  It slowed to a 6:36.  That was more ideal for my planned pace for this run.

However, when I got past this hilly part, I was back to running sub 6:30s.  I guess my breathing and my lunch finally caught up to me as I began to feel side stitches.  I only slowed slightly and was able to get through it.  I pushed a little over some of the small hills because I knew I didn't have many hills left.  There was one tough uphill part about a half mile from the school.  That slowed me slightly to a 6:26.

As I got back to the school, I had one more hard mile to go.  There was a mother, son, baby and grandmother walking around the school parking lot.  I ran by them a few times.  My breathing was laboring now, but really my legs weren't tiring.  The quads were starting to get sore, but they weren't slowing me down.  I went pretty hard in the final half mile here and ran this 6th fast mile at 6:14.

I finished up with a couple easy loops around the school parking lot.  Following that, I ran a partial loop of my neighborhood.  I had 8 total miles in the books, with 6 of them at a fast pace.  I wanted to run half marathon pace, but it was actually a little faster than that.  It was probably more like 8 or 9 mile race pace.  At least it gave me a feel for how much I need to slow down.  The fast segment was run in 38:24 (6:24 pace).  That would put me at a sub 40 10k if I ran a little farther.  Maybe today was too fast, but it was a good workout and I know if I don't go out to hard on race day, I should be able to finish close to this strong.

As long as the weather isn't crazy, I'm very confident that I can run a sub 1:27 on Sunday.  The good thing is that breaking 1:30 seems like it will be very easy.  Unless I have some type of problem or injury, I'll be well under that.  My PR is a 1:33, so I should be well ahead of that.

Tomorrow, I'm taking off again.  It is supposed to snow anyway.  I'll let the quads rest more.  Clearly, they could use some additional time off.  Maybe I'll run Wednesday and Thursday.  I'm only running about 4 days this week.  I figure when I get up there on Saturday, I'll check out the course with a very easy 4 or 5 mile run.  I have a couple mental strategies that I'm hoping to use to if I need them on Sunday.

8 miles - 53:46 (6:43 pace)

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