Uptempo Long Run

So right after the short ride in the Massapequa Preserve with my new BMC (and a quick bio break), I put on the new pair of Adidas PureBoost DPR that I got on sale a few months ago and went out the door again. It was a Saturday, I should do a long run. I NEEDed to do a long run.

The weather has not been very clement during the last few weeks. On top of that, I have been starting to cross train a lot more, and have been lazy (mostly) running outside. I have not hit my Strava weekly goal of 25 mins since late August. I have not lost any fitness, on the contrary I actually got stronger overall thanks to the spinning classes and swimming sessions. What I lack though was "time on feet", long runs over 15 miles to prepare for the NYCM next week.

At this point it is too late to do a 18-miler. I decided to just go with 10, and since it's pretty nice and cool outside (high 50s, low 60s), I should just push to run a bit faster than my comfortable pace of 10:00/mile. It turned out to be quite a nice workout.

My first mile was around 8:54. Shoes were super comfy, legs were fresh, so I started to push a bit more, very slowly. I progressively pushed my pace to around 8:30 to around mile 5 then took a small break to wipe the sweat off my face and drank some water. It was chilly at this point and that made me feel not thirsty, but I knew I was dehydrated.

During these first 5 miles, there were times I had negative thoughts about just stopping at 2, 3.1, or 4 because I have not run outside regularly and was simply bored. I realized I have started to feel a bit more impatient with longer runs these days. I hope this feeling will come to pass soon. After the break though, I was still feeling fresh, and since I was half way there, I was almost there.

Mile 6-10 were harder, both because I was getting more tired at this point and I was pushing for negative splits. At different points I glanced at my watch and saw 7:5x, not good, I slowed my self down to 8:10-8:20 right away. These spikes happened probably because it was getting pretty dark and I must have had instinctively ran faster to go home...

All in all, it was a good workout. My legs were sore, but not in pain. My average Heart Rate was around 161, a bit high but still in Tempo. During the next week I'll probably do 2-3 more shorter runs just to maintain some confidence for the marathon. If I were training regularly I would probably aim for a 3:59:59 (Breaking 4!) but since I have not, an average pace of 10:00/mile is probably more realistic.