Saturday 24 miles of White Kenyan Speed

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Saturday turned out to be the best long run I’ve had since CIM.  I was a little nervous on how it would turn out, since I went out for some fun Friday night, instead of my usual laying low.  The fun also resulted in some bruises here and there that I could definitely feel in the first few miles.  Mostly a shin bruise, and my hips were a little sore.  I did have a great time though, and I definitely made some good steps forward towards learning how to Unicycle

We went for 24 miles, running 10 miles before meeting the big Austin Marathon group for their 14 miler.  Those 10 miles were run in an average of 7:42(3:20).   Since the first few miles were close to 8min/mile, the latter miles were therefore down into the 7:20s.   Started feeling really good after about 7 miles. 

We then ran a 7 mile out and back along the last 7 miles of the Austin marathon course.  The first re-start mile (mile 11) clocked in at 8:08, which was nice to give ourselves time to get going again, as we had 20+ minutes in between runs. (my bad in calculating the start of our prior 10 miles)   Miles 12 – 20 were clocked as follows:

7:21

7:11

7:13

7:13

7:14

7:18

7:20

7:21

7:14

…a 7:15 average pace.

Considering my Goal Pace in California was 7:15, this means we ran right around a 3:10 marathon pace for miles 10-20.  (we had already run 10)

For the last 4 miles, Jo Dee and I picked up the pace considerably and she clocked us running 6:40/mile then faster, then faster, including up and down the last few hills. 

(6:40pace is a 2:55 marathon).  We then really picked up the pace and ran in the low 6’s for the last mile on Congress and 4th.  We were going HARD and finished the return 7 miles (18 – 24) in 47min 02 seconds

So overall:

We ran 7:42 average pace (3:20) for 1 – 10

We ran 7:15 average pace (3:10) for 11 – 18

We ran 6:42 average pace (2:55) for 18 – 24

Including in the low 6min/mile for the last mile!

Why did we go this hard?  I told Jo Dee I wanted to run hard the last 4 miles, to really see how it would feel to run sub 3 hour marathon pace on tired legs.  Since the Austin marathon has three hills in the last 2 miles, I also wanted to attack those pretty hard to see how they felt.

We really killed it on this run, and a nice confidence builder with a little over 2.5 months to go before Boston!  I have decided on my goal for Boston, but that’s for a different blog post.   

Most importantly, Jo Dee got to feel how a fast pace feels on the last 7 miles of her goal marathon in 2 weeks, and she also got to really feel how those hills will be running hard as well.  So hopefully that will help her out to plan accordingly in 2 weeks!