I went out Sunday morning to do 25 miles. I decided to do my training at White Rock Lake on the asphalt/pavement running path since the trails at North Shore were still muddy and I wanted a little break from the mud. We have had some sort of freakish warm front move in--at 4:30 AM on Sunday morning it was 63 degrees!
As I got to the lake I started thinking about the route to run, the distance, etc. I thought about Richard at the Freescale Marathon in Austin, and VJ and Patrick doing the half. So I decided to do 26.2 in honor of their efforts.
As I started figuring out the logistics of 26.2, I realized I'd have to do two lake loops, then almost half a loop before turning around and going back to the start. I didn't feel like thinking that much, so I just decided to do three loops. Each loop is about 9.3 miles, so that meant 27.9. In the end I walked a little short out and back to reach an even 28 miles.
I felt great all day in spite of the heat. In fact, my marathon split was less than one minute slower than my marathon PR (PR: 4:56:57; split 4:57:42). I slowed down for the last 1.8 miles because I was pretty exhausted at this point. I ended up at 5:20:14 (11:26 pace). My marathon PR pace is 11:20. So I felt like this was a good workout; I'm sure if I had tapered and I was racing I could go quite a bit faster. I don't have any road marathons on my schedule but maybe I'll try to do one next winter.
I didn't walk today but will do the normal 6+ miles tomorrow. I really need to start planning my Syllamo taper. Congrats to all the Freescalers!
Distance: 28.0 miles
Time: 5:20:14
Pace: 11:26
