Sunday longish run.

Catching up on the last week, I had the good treadmill 10K on Tuesday then had a so-so interval session (again on the treadmill) on Thursday. I did 4x800 @ 3:10 each. I set the incline to 3% which according to the incline pace equivalency charts I found converts that 6:20 to a 5:58 pace. Oops. I didn't want to do them that fast. I'm not sure if I totally believe that the 3% incline takes 20+ seconds/mile off of the equivalent road pace. I usually put 2.5% incline on the treadmill for my regular runs because the treadmill makes running so much easier than the road (and it burns a few more calories). I guess it's a good training technique either way.

I was set to do a long run on Saturday but had to take a rain check and move it to Sunday morning instead. I got up a little after 6, ate and got dressed. I took my time and got out the door at 7am which I found was about 30 minutes before the sun came up. I ran in the dark for the first 3.5 miles or so. I don't have a good feel that yet. I ran a two loop course so that I could carry my regular Ultimate Direction water bottle during the run and stash a spare bike water bottle full of Heed at the end of the first loop where the little family-owned convenience store I frequent was until last week when it closed (after 60+ years of operation sadly). I try to plan my routes around the local convenience stores so that I can run with one water bottle and carry Heed powder with me. I just stop at a store on the route and buy water to fill the bottle. There are no public water sources around here that I've found yet. I need to make friends along the route and stop at their houses to get water or something.

In any case, I did my first loop, then filled up with the stashed bottle and headed out on a different loop bringing the extra bottle. I dropped the bottle off about a mile away before I headed out toward Kopachuck state park to loop around the coast and back in toward Arletta. I tried to pick up the pace a bit but my stomach wasn't feeling great after last week's attempt to eat more fiber. I accidentally took too big of a dose of Psillium Husk fiber a few days in a row and have been paying for it all week. I don't need to go into any more detail that about it. I'm also trying to fight off a bit of a cold that my daughter brought home from pre-school.

I looped around to my stashed bottle, picked it up and drained it as I headed back toward home. I needed to be back by 9am and my pace had been falling off over the last few miles (see splits below) so I figured that I'd just skip the last 2 mile out and back near home and be happy with 13+ miles instead of 15+. It's always better to be 15 minutes early than 10 minutes late. When I gave in to the shorter distance I slowed down for the last mile to cool down. I've been listening to the Running Times podcast which covers some pretty good running topics, one of them being tapering and recovery. They underscored the importance of finishing runs with a slow jog at the end to help your muscles begin the process of flushing out the lactic acid to avoid some of the Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) while beginning the recovery process.

I plodded home, made a bottle of Recoverite and hit the showers. Another one in the books.

Time: 1:49:19
Dist: 13.33
Avg Pace: 8:12
Ascent: 4922 (claims Garmin, I'd say about 1/2 that if you asked me)

I found it strange that my Avg HR for the run was only 147. That seems low to me. Maybe I'm taking it too easy and listening to the Quadrathon podcast isn't helping. :)

Splits (now that I know how to make the Garmin take them):
1: 8:19
2: 7:53
3: 8:07
4: 8:30
5: 7:52
6: 7:32
7: 8:19
8: 8:35
9: 7:43
10: 7:55
11: 8:20
12: 8:02
13: 8:54

You can see where the hills were by the times (4, 7, 13)