So I'm going to totally pat myself on the back today. I had to do 15 miles today. I've never done that many before. The plan was I'd get to the parkway at 5:30, run the first 5 and then my coworker Kathy would meet me for the next 10.
On the way down my road this morning I saw that I had a voicemail. Kathy was on call and was working until 3am last night so she wasn't running this morning. Bummer. I was looking forward to the distraction the last 4 miles of a running partner! Oh well.
I decided to park at the fly shop so that I could stop at the end of each loop (3 loops total) to drink my water and take a gel. I was glad I was going so early since it was already 70 and humid. (In fact it was so humid that A. sweat was dripping off the rim of my visor for the first time and B. I left my shirt on the car and ran in just my sports bra at the 10 mile point which is huge for me)
My plan was to do the first 5 really slow, like 12 min mile slow. That lasted one mile. I tried to keep it slow for the other 4 but found it difficult to stay as slow as I wanted. The first 5 splits were:
11:52
11:44
11:25
11:07
11:32
Next 5 I went the opposite way for the loop. I hadn't gone in this direction in a while so it was a nice change even with the bigger hills. I felt great this loop and really had to work at keeping it slow. Better than I've felt in ages. Here's the splits:
11:02
11:28
11:18
10:36
10:43
So I'm almost finished with that loop and who do I see, an angel sent to help me finish, Jill! What luck!!! It really helped having her on the last leg. She even made me do a little speed drill at mile 14 which showed me that I still had a lot in the tank after all those miles. Final splits:
10:49
11:01
11:24
11:30
10:56
10:43
My Garmin said it was 15.54 and sports tracks said 15.94. Whatever it was I'm really happy with it. I was really nervous about how this run would turn out. I felt like I would feel fine until 10 and then crash, now I know I was ready for this run and probably could have sped it up.
Total time was 2:58. Average pace was 11:13. Best pace was 7:55.
I was shooting for 3 hours so I did it in less which is awesome. Totally looking forward to marathon training now. Bring it on!
4 years ago
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5 comments:
Great job!! I just did my first 15 a couple weeks ago and it DOES feel great, huh? Glad it went so well for you.
Great job Heather! Its been a long time since I went that far. You are going to rock Philly! Very cool that you ran into Jill.
You did a great job Heather. Folks, our little "speed drill" consisted of picking a bend in the trail ahead of us and running a faster pace to that point. Then we could slow down. I was running about an 8:30 pace, Heather caught up to me and then went past me. She's got lots of reserve energy!
Frankie, whenever Heather runs in the park on Saturdays I almost always run into her. I love running into people that I know when I go out for my run.
Heather, best of luck with your marathon training. I think you are going to surprise yourself.
You are doing such a great job with increasing your mileage and sticking to a plan --- way to go!!!!!
16 miles is far! Great job!
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