Training for New York City Marathon Week #2: Sunday's Long Run

Glorious Sunflowers, the stalks were taller than me

It was quite humid today about 89% according to weather.com. By mile four I was dripping with sweat. The humidity did slow me down, so did this beautiful Sunflower patch when I stopped to take a picture. Yesterday's trail run was perfect, I was not sore but I felt like my calves got worked. I didn't pay attention to my Garmin until I was almost two thirds done.  I noticed that my pace came to 9:36 min/mile. That was awesome, since I was going for the range of 9:39 to 10:39 min/mile pace. I thought, might as well keep this pace up until 8.50 miles then in the last 2.50 miles, slow it down to 10:39. It will be a good cool down.  There were rolling hills on the last 2.50 miles so surely, I will be forced to slow down.  

On that 2.5 miles, there is a bridge with a steady incline and several more slopes followed after that.  Without looking at my watch, I felt like I had slowed down tremendously, almost to a crawl.  Normally that would bother me. Since I had already reset my Garmin and the 8.50 was in my pocket for a lovely 9:36 pace, I didn't care about the slowdown. Just go with it and enjoy the end of the run.  When I got closer to home, I stopped the watch at mile 2.60. That was my 11 miles for my long run today. I was done and I walked the rest. Week 2 was a success.

When I got home, my Garmin revealed that my pace for the last 2.60 miles was 9:27 min/mile.  I ended up running the last 1/4 of the run faster than the other 3/4. My plan was supposed to be the opposite, but  this is good.  Well known coaches, including Hal Higdon, suggest varying the pace of the long run every 3rd week or so. He is a proponent of the 3/1 method, where you run the last quarter of your mileage faster than the first three-quarters. If I were planning to run 16, I would run 12 at a slower pace and pick it up on the final 4 miles. However, Higdon does not recommend doing this every long run. Every third week is plenty.  All in all,  today's workout is great.  I am looking forward to Week #3 and it looks like this:

Mon     X-Train (cycle or power class)
Tues     6 mi easy 
Wed    4x 800 Yasso
Thurs   3 mi easy
Fri        REST
Sat       6 mi pace  (Substituting a 5K run on the beach)
Sun      8 mi easy

I want to do a 5K tune up race on Saturday so I won't be doing the pace run.  That will be the only change this week. Happy Running!