My long run today put the cap on what for me was a fairly brutal week running wise. I normally am not accustomed to running a lot of speed work, but on Tuesday I ran an impromptu speed session (2400,1600,800), and I still wanted to run some longer intervals prior to the long run so I ended up running 2 x 3 miles hard on Thursday evening (a workout which left me feeling just a little sore the next morning). All put together with the long run, and the fact that I ran 66 miles from Wed until Sat, this week wore me out. I am definitely ready for no running tomorrow. My original plan was to run a 4 lap tempo at Sunset park (approx. 10.8 miles). However, the wind was every bit as bad as yesterday, and knowing that I was already feeling tired, I didn't want to have to fight the wind at the park. Instead, I decided to run 20 miles out and back on the Pittman wash and up St. Rose Parkway like I did 2 weeks ago. I am fairly certain that it was 10 miles, but I don't have real accurate mile markers along the route, so I will just estimate 5 mile markers for the sake of guessing. The first 5 miles was mostly uphill with a strong cross wind that slowed me down a fair amount (34:44) followed by 5 miles that was also mostly uphill, but with cross wind (about a mile) tail wind (another mile or so) and headwind (the last 3 miles). I turned around at 1:10:00 (35:16 second 5 miles) and immediately felt a difference that was night and day from what I had been feeling as I went from having a strong headwind to having a strong tailwind instead. I started my tempo when I turned around, and based on some marks on the trail I was on it appeared that for the first few miles I was averaging mid 5:20's. Once I hit the section where I had tailwind on the way out I hit the corresponding headwind on the way back, and it was nasty. I was just glad that I only had to endure it for a little while (approx. 5:50 on the way back vs. approx. 6:50 for this section on the way out). After I made it through the section with the headwind I had a really hard time picking the pace back up, as I was dealing with cross winds for what seemed like the majority of the rest of the run. I hit my 15 mile mark in 1:38:05 (28:05 for 5 miles) and ran the next mile in 5:40 as I fought the cross wind. I don't feel like I sped up at all over the next 2 miles, and I didn't want to finish the last 5 miles slower than the previous 5 miles. So, just before my approximate 2 mile mark from my house I started ramping up the effort (extra downhill did help some) and I ran the last "2 mile" stretch in 10:37 to finish my run with a total time of 2:05:43 (27:38 for the last 5 miles). So, 55:43 for the last 10 miles, with an average of 5:34 per mile. I am not super happy about the pace per mile for the run, but considering how I was feeling prior to the run I am just happy to get this workout out of the way. I don't think the pace is really all that important anyhow, as I mainly just wanted to get some work in that was hard enough to give myself a stimulus to help in my marathon prep.
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