That was a doozy. I had my longest training run this morning, a smidge over twelve miles, which puts me at the peak of my training program. I get to start dialing back the mileage slightly to conserve strength and get well rested before the half-marathon in three weeks.
I’m looking forward to tapering down my mileage, if only because my legs felt a bit heavy and fatigued when I started this morning. I was a couple of seconds slower than I wanted to be on my first split, not bad on my second split, and probably too fast in general over the first half of my run.
Still, I was making good time, even if I was a little slower at some milestones than I have been on earlier, shorter runs. I was hoping to finish somewhere around 1:34:00 or 1:35:00, which would give me a minute or two of cushion for an eight-mile pace. I reasoned that if I could run the 12.08 miles that fast, on race day I should be able to complete the final 1.02 miles in around eight minutes, which would put me well above a goal of 1:44:00.
But around mile 7 I started to feel a bit more fatigued, aching a bit on one side, and it was a battle the rest of the way. My splits kept getting slower than I wanted, and I felt increasingly like I had less and less to give. When I tackled the big hill for the third time, I was really struggling. In a lot of ways I felt like I was fighting all the way up the hill. My breathing actually got pretty labored, which is unusual. It probably did me no favors that near the top of the hill I had to pass some pedestrian smoking a cigarette.
Still, I managed to ascend the hill, and even though most of my remaining split times were slower than I wanted, I kept plugging along. It was definitely hard over the final few miles, and I was really trying to be tough mentally to keep up my pace. But toward the end, it felt increasingly like a contest between my will to run harder and my body’s physical ability to give any more effort. I did manage to find a little extra over the last mile and a half or so, at least in places, but even my fastest at that point was slower than it usually is.
Nonetheless, I managed to finish with a time that kept me under an eight-minute-per-mile pace. And even though I fell a minute or so shy of my goal for this run, I guess I don’t feel bad about it, knowing that I managed to run close to the full half-marathon distance while maintaining a healthy pace, and despite not feeling stellar physically.
If nothing else, I think the combination of easing up in my training over the next few weeks to build up my reserve of leg strength, plus the adrenaline boost I’ll get from running in a race with thousands of other people, will probably be enough to ensure that I make it through the entire race at an appropriately brisk pace while still feeling pretty comfortable. I’ll probably have to try not to get too caught up in the excitement of the race at the beginning and start too fast, but I should still be rested enough to overcome any overexuberance out of the gate.
Today’s stats:
- Distance run: 12.08 miles
- Time: 1:35:59
- Average speed: 7.6 mi/h
- Average pace: 7:54/mi
- Calories burned: 1805
Impressive results! Even your “bad” runs have fast times now.