Oct. 6, 2007

Summer returns! I'm really happy I didn't have a 20-miler today. It never cooled off much during the night and was 73 when I started out about 6:45 a.m. Humidity was high. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and I knew that once the sun came up, it would warm up quickly. I wanted to get done as soon as possible.
The schedule called for 13 miles at my planned marathon pace. Anymore, I don't know what that is, but on paper it's 9:15. Most days that seems slow to me, particularly cool days.
Today I purposely picked a hilly course so I could simulate the marathon course. This course is probably a bit more hilly than the race course, but that just makes for a good workout.
I started out with a 10:08 mile and then immediately set out to get the average pace down to 9:15, which means I ran several - well, OK, all the rest of the splits, under 9:15. In fact, the slowest split after mile one was 9:11 and most of the rest were under 9.
Somewhere in mile 2 I cramped a little or pulled a calf muscle slightly, and it took 6 or 7 miles to run that out. It's a little tender now, several hours after the run, but it'll be OK. Thankfully, I had no pain at all in my Achilles, which I have been nursing for 3 or 4 weeks now.
I actually went 13.15 miles, just because I wanted the distance to be at least a half marathon, and I ran it in 1:59:27, a 9:05 pace.
It was getting pretty warm toward the end, but I finished feeling fine. If I have any luck at all and the race gets cool weather, I feel like I can keep that pace for 26 miles.