I worked all day yesterday so I opted to do my 10 mile race pace run yesterday after work and then do my 18 miler today after I got done with fire department training. This whole "marathon training" thing has really put a damper on my football-watching activities this fall - and by "activities" I mean drinking beer and eating wings. It's hard to enjoy yourself at the bar when you know that you have 18 miles of fun hanging over your head. So I skipped the bar - and thus avoided watching my Baltimore Ravens totally shit the bed again on offense (seriously, Flacco, we gave you a great contract and this is how you repay us? By totally sucking?), so I guess that was a semi-bright spot. They might have sucked, but at least I didn't have to watch it.
But it could be worse, I could be a Giants fan. Zing!
So anyway, I had big plans for my 18 miler today as this will be my last longish run before the marathon in three weeks (holy shit!). I wanted to make sure that I finished feeling strong and like I was holding myself back for the run, rather than slow and lethargic like I have on a few of my long runs. Coming off so many miles from last week's Ragnar, I actually had no idea how my legs were going to feel. I've had a pretty good week training-wise, so I wasn't worried about this run, per se, but I also wanted to make sure that it was a good one just for the mental factor.
It. Was. Great.
I picked a relatively flattish route that had a few undulating climbs that could mimic some of the marathon course and set out at roughly an 8:45 pace. I wanted to keep it as steady as possible throughout the run and then pick it up towards the end, rather than start too fast and fall off pace - every marathoners worst nightmare. I still have a hard time keeping a steady, consistent pace - I always find myself speeding up or slowly down for no apparent reason - but for the most part I stayed pretty consistently between 8:35 and 8:50.
As you can see, I sped up a little bit after I hit the half marathon point, which was intentional. I knew I was more than half way into it, so I wanted to see how my body would react to a little bit harder pace each mile. I was feeling absolutely awesome by mile 16 so kicked it up even more. As you can see by the above chart - I kicked some ass on my final 5k.
Hell yeah.
The only crappy part was that upon my arrival home, A) SJ wasn't home (because she is having a girls' night in Astoria so stop being selfish) and, B) THERE WAS NO BEER ANYWHERE! This could have easily been rectified had SJ been home (again, stop being so selfish!) but instead I went to the store in my still gross sweaty clothes and bought adult beverages to celebrate (by myself) my amazingness.
Side note: If you guys look outside right now you'll probably see my head floating somewhere in the sky, that's how big it is right now.
Now, on to the wrap up!
Total Running Miles: 52. This is strange, because I am supposed to be in a taper but for some reason I am now running more miles than I have in previous weeks. However, now that my last long run is done I will actually be going down in mileage, so look for this number to be somewhere in the 30s next week.
Total Miles Driven in My Car this Week: 54. So that means that I drove only two miles more in my car all week as I did running. Wow.
I hope everyone had a great weekend. There were a lot of races going on out there - so I hope everyone kicked some serious butt in whatever they did!
And I would also like to give a HUGE shout out to Brad and Laura for their Baltimore Marathon finishes! Great job guys and congrats on your first marathons. This whole marathon thing must run in the family (ha!).
And also a big congrats to Laura's mom, Martha on her marathon finish! It was a big weekend for Robinsons/Schertles in Maryland!
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