T-2 to LA, the last long run..

Today the last long run before LA. Originally I intended to do a 10 today (Sat) and the long run tomorrow, but the forecast was for rain tomorrow so we decided to switch the runs around.


I felt pretty good after a full rest day yesterday, and so decided to push at a high effort level.


The weather was great and there were a bunch of Team in Training people out doing their 10 mile run for San Diego (some doing Halfs some fulls) I ran into older fellow and struck up 
a conversation, being careful to do his pace which was about 11:30 (you can see that in the splits below for miles 8 and 9). He's doing the Big Sur in May..someday I'll have to try that one but it does have a mongo hill.


After we reached his turnaround I said goodbye and poured on the coal again. This was my first 20+ run with my Kinvaras and I was curious to see how my feet would react in the late stages of the run.


Here's my splits:

Split	Dist	Pace	HR	Cadence
1	1.00	10:27	111	84
2	1.00	09:18	120	87
3	1.00	10:00	118	84
4	1.00	09:32	121	86
5	1.00	08:58	125	87
6	1.00	09:27	120	85
7	1.00	09:39	123	86
8	1.00	11:39	111	82 yakking 8)
9	1.00	11:48	110	82 yakking
10	1.00	09:31	123	86
11	0.19	09:28	124	86  hit the lap button here by mistake?
12	1.00	09:28	124	86
13	1.00	09:34	124	86
14	1.00	09:27	124	86
15	1.00	09:26	128	87
16	1.00	09:49	127	86
17	1.00	09:31	130	87
18	1.00	09:36	130	87
19	1.00	09:25	131	87
20	1.00	09:17	135	87
21	1.00	09:20	135	86
22	1.00	09:02	140	89 go time!
23	0.50	08:58	143	89

Total distance 21.69 m
Pace 9:42 m/m
HR 126
Cadence 86


I felt really good....it was a hard run..probably 8.5/10 effort, but you'll see there was a constant pace and I was able to kick it up a bit at the end. I felt like I could have held a constant 9:30 pace for a full 26.2 with minimal fade...what with a taper and race excitement giving a little extra boost. So I think this is around my marathon pace right now...which is good..not quite as good as July but darn good considering my lower mileage.


I was pleased to see that the shoes gave me no problems and my form was just awesome. I had no problems holding a fast cadence even at the end of the run. The strength training and the hills are a Very Good Thing.


Sometimes you zone-out during a run and think about all sorts of things. But not for this run..the last 10 miles of this run I was in the zone. The miles just sped by while I focused internally on running as perfectly as possible and imagining I was in the last few miles of the LA marathon.


I drank two bottles of water and ate 3 GUs plus 8 clifbloks. I noticed I started to feel a bit hungry at the end of the run. The temps were 55 to 61F..it felt much warmer at the end as there was full sun...could have sworn it was 70F+


I did finally get my Peregrine trail shoes....going to try them out on an easy hike to loosen up this afternoon.

T-2.5 weeks to LA, midweek training

Do you know who this is?

Still no Peregrine Trail shoes here yet..hopefully I'll get them in time for the weekend.

Sunday I did not do my hilly, pokey run....I was tired... and yah, mildly hungover 8), from a party on Saturday night. Sunday morning we had a early brunch and then afternoon event which made it hard to figure out how get it in a long run.


But I wasn't bothered..a step back week to 21 miles was probably a good idea after doing so much the week before. But this week I hope to hit 45-50 miles+ as the final week before my 2 week taper.


2 weeks you say? Isn't the marathon taper supposed to be three? Yes, it is. But that's if you are doing a traditional mega-peaking. If you are running races every 6-7 weeks you'd rather trade a slightly lower peak for a higher level of fitness on the next race. 

Monday I did an easy 4.85 miles@9:54 m/m, 87 spm, with a couple of miles at 9:30-ish pace.


Tuesday I was ready to do the Stanford Dish hill run again: 9.85@10:09 m/m, which is about 6 minutes faster than my last time. I still walked the huge uphills at a fast clip, but this time I ran the downs much faster. No quad soreness the next day, either.


How do you run downhills? After much reading/surfing, I decided that a high stride rate works best here too...less deceleration on each foot fall and less leg extension means less rupturing of muscle fibers. Seems to work ok so far for 700' of down..we'll see how it works for 6000' of down at S2S...

I've always been gun shy of the dish run and have done a fairly modest hill loop instead..but I'm deciding that the mega hills are a really good strength builder. (assume you can survive them ;) I hope to be able to run more of the ups, but this path has a 6% grade for the first 1.5 miles, which is KILLER.


Wednesday, a cross training day..the usual 30 min of bike with  4x2 minute more intense sprints in there followed by 30-40 minutes of weights and floor exercises. My heart is really going during all this stuff as I don't rest between sets exercises..so the cardio is pretty good too.

I did the 'step downs' again...last time I did them I noticed a funny feeling in my knee a day later..I think I overdid it bit..this time I used one hand to hang on to something to take some of the weight off  my knee as I did each rep.  You'd think if you can run a marathon you could do an exercise like this thousands of times! But no...how about 10 times? 


I'm definitely going on the theory with these exercises that if they seem hard, it must be good for me ...


Some rain showers dogging us here the rest of the week so I'm not sure how I'm going to do my 10/22 mile runs...no way I'm doing 22 on the treadmill..I'd rather get wet ;)


Thursday update: 4.86 miles@9:37 pace....a couple of miles in the middle at 9:15-9:20


Happy running!