A Good Long Run

We've got other fun things happening on Sunday, so out the door at 6am Saturday instead.


I decided to ignore distance and make the goal to run for 4 hours. I allowed myself to run the first 3 hours at any pace I wanted but I hoped to speed up to my marathon pace (<9:00) for the last hour. The whole goal of the run is to work on my running form in that last hour.


I have yet to crunch the garmin numbers but I think I basically did this. I saw 10:15 pace average for the first 2 hours. During this time I would stop and walk to eat my GUs and drink, take a pebble out of the shoe, etc. It was nice.

For the third hour I sped up such that my overall average came down some, I can't remember too well..
 
For much of the last hour I was on the Paly track and I cranked out a couple of miles at well under marathon pace...and didn't to too shabby on the 2 miles back home either. I felt like I kept my forefoot strike pretty well. 

Total time just under 4 hours, distance 24 miles, average pace 9:53min/mile. This is the longest, "long run", I've ever done in training. The garmin says my average cadence was 83, which is pretty good considering the slow pace for the first 2 hours.


The eating and drinking also went well: I ate one GU Roctane every 30 minutes, and filled my water bottles twice. When I got home I was the same weight as when I started, which is really good (means we hydrated well). It helped that it was foggy the entire morning and 60F.


This was the longest run without heel lifts I have done since my first marathon 3/09! I did feel a bit sore there after the run so I iced them just to be extra nice to them. 


Now I see how the recovery goes.... I'll probably give it two full days, with some big walking on monday.