After the rest day yesterday, the plan was to do some type of speedwork today. I wanted to run twice. I was going to get up early to run, but not surprisingly, that didn't happen.
The weather was amazing in the afternoon. It was in the upper 50s. I wondered if wearing short sleeves and shorts was too much, for a fast workout. Luckily, I ran into a breeze quite often, so it was a perfect day.
I went to the Route 33 Boat Launch. In the fall, I came up with this great workout. It was a mile warmup and cooldown with 2 blocks of 4 miles at around 10k pace and 2 recovery miles in between each block. That means 8 miles of hard running and 12 miles total. It's a nice half marathon training workout.
I was going to do each part of the run in halves and hydrate and refuel, midway through. I started off easy and feeling decent. Usually, I'd like to feel better during the warmup mile. I was a little discouraged.
I started off the fast portion of the run. I wasn't feeling strong. That was for certain. I wanted to run this segment at a sub 6:30 per mile pace. The first fast mile was a 6:21. That took a lot of work and I already had a lot taken out of me.
I ended up keeping the pace at the start of this second challenging mile. However, it was just too early to feel as crappy as I did. I probably could've made it through the rest of the run and hit my goals, but I wasn't looking to do too much work. I have a race this weekend and don't want to burn myself out.
As I was doing the Hugh Moore Park loop, I decided to give up on this workout. I backed it down and figured I'd do an easier semi long run. I was only a mile and a half into the hard running and 2.5 miles from the entire start of the run.
I headed toward Easton. I figured I would run to the end of the path near the Route 22 Bridge and then come back. That shouldn't be too bad with an easy effort. The problem was that it never actually became an easy effort. I slowed down, but with the quick start, I was still only running miles at slightly over a 7 minute pace.
Since it was a nice day, there were quite a few people out. Still, this section isn't heavily traveled. I was on my own for the most part. I enjoyed the few small hills. I kept up a pretty solid pace.
It wasn't too long before I was to the bridge. I had to turn around early, because they are doing construction on it. I also saw a homeless guy hanging out under the free bridge. I was glad to be moving fast. A couple of these miles had been run under a 7 minute pace. Overall, my pace was slightly under that. I ended up turning around at 6.75 miles.
Keeping this pace up was exhausting and challenging. I was able to do it though. At mile 10, I was still at exactly 7 minutes flat. That was even after backing off slightly. I ran through Hugh Moore Park and went out a little farther. A woman was running along the canal towpath. I ended up flying by her on the way back.
It was good to get to mile 11, but I was beat. I was determined to run to mile 15. I knew that I'd now get back to my car at mile 14. I'd have to add some distance.
Climbing up the hill near Riverview was a little bit of a challenge. My overall pace dipped slightly under 7 minutes per mile now. I was determined to try to keep it up. The legs were beginning to fade slightly. I focused on getting to the half marathon point.
When I did arrive at that point, I saw that my time was 1:31 and change. That's a nice training run pace. Shortly after that point, I saw female Gayle going the other direction. I saw her in the same area last week too.
I ran past a few dogs and there were some bikers there as well. The strangest thing I saw was a guy in his 30s on a skateboard. I guess he was skating long distance because I saw him quite a few miles earlier too.
I turned around where the pavement ended and headed back out. I was just under 14 miles at that point. I went out a short distance and then came back and finished up at mile 15. I was quite sore and exhausted from the effort. I had not taken in any water either. I had planned to, before I changed the workout around. Running 10 hard miles without a drink was challenging enough on Sunday. This 15 miler was far more difficult.
I wanted to run again later on. I wasn't sure how I would. I wanted run on a softer surface and at a much slower pace. I headed to the Nor-Bath Trail around 8 PM. That was right at dusk.
The plan was for 5, easy recovery miles. I started in a neighborhood and headed east. It was nice and peaceful. Everyone was gone for the night. I was alone with my thoughts and feeling decent. The start was a struggle with only 3 hours of rest, but it got better as I went on.
I was surprised that the trail was in such good shape. I expected it to be muddy. It was nearly perfect. I might have to run there more frequently for less of an impact.
I turned around at 2.55 miles and headed back. This run did seem to take forever. The pace was barely under 9 minutes per mile. Compared with the quicker run earlier, this one was much slower.
The run definitely helped me to recover. I was a bit sore by the end. Running 3 or 4 miles, instead of 5, would've probably been more ideal. I was glad I got out there to run though.
Tomorrow, I'm going to run a lot again. This time, it will be all easy runs. I'd really like to get on a trail, maybe at Jacobsburg or South Mountain (Lehigh). I'd love to total around 15 miles again tomorrow. That would put me at 50 miles for the week, with 3 days to go. I'll likely break tomorrow down into 2 runs.
First run 15 miles - 1:44:33 (6:58 pace)
Second run 5 miles - 43:44 (8:45 pace)
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