NYC Marathon Training Week #8: Saturday & Sunday Long Runs

Week #8 is done! I can't believe it. This training is going by so quickly I feel like my window for improvement is quickly diminishing.

The training runs for this weekend was on the easy side. Since I was well rested from Friday, I guess it would be no wonder my resting HR was back to normal, at 55.  I haven't seen that since the beginning of the month. I've been training with 3-4 beats higher most of the time.  It was alright to go on with the training.  If it were 10 beats higher, I would definitely take the day off.  That's a huge sign my body is clamoring for a rest day.

Saturday~
Saturday was a done at my perceived effort of very easy, maybe 65%.  I have forgotten to charge my Garmin so I had to do without it.  It was just as well since the watch makes me run faster than what I'd like to or supposed to. It was fine to run without any pressure, I had more time to appreciate the scenery and my music. It took an hour and 27 minutes, according to our wall clock when I got home. I also took my time to stretch half mile into the run, which typically takes about two minutes at the most. Taking that into account, my pace was approximately 10:37 for an easy day.  This has to be the slowest pace for long runs I've done this training cycle. This was all good though. After my run, I felt like I still had some more energy.  I kept this info in the back of my mind to see how this would play out for next day's 17 miler.

Sunday~
I woke up with my resting HR two beats higher than my normal heart rate. Normally I would have gone out to run first thing in the morning, but today, Hubs was invited to play golf with his buddies. Naturally, I stayed home to kick it with my kid.  We are trying to catch up with our Cheers marathon--we're now in Season 7.  Such a fabulous show. Great writing, no wonder it lasted for 265 episodes. Anyway, it was a great day for a run.  The fog hovered over practically the whole day.  I was not worried at all about the day getting away from me nor about the heat because with Coastal town's blanket of fog, you can run anytime of the day. No more planning around heat like I used to when we lived in North County. I finally got myself together after a quick lunch around 1:45 in the afternoon. It was still foggy and misty.

I wanted to keep my pace close to how I ran last week's long run, around 10:00 pace.  I started easy, stopped at the first 1/2 mile to do my stretching. I decided I was going to run LOVR, Turri Road and parts of Baywood June Fest course today for a total of 17 miles. That meant 11 significant hills on this course! I was ready for the challenge since my legs were well rested.  I must say, it is getting easier to run these hills.

Overall, this was a great run for several reasons. My pace for the whole run was 9:57. I ran another negative split. For the first half, my pace was 10:04 and the second half was 9:47. The last three miles were my fastest miles averaging at 9:24 pace. My goal today was to end the run with a fast finish. Mission accomplished! Also, my HR for the duration of the run was 141. That's 3 beats lower than last Sunday's 16 miler, running a much flat course. But then again, I didn't run a pace run this weekend, whereas I did last week.

Looking forward to Week 9. Here's what Hal Higdon has in store for me:

Mon ~ REST
Tues ~9 easy
Wed ~6x800 Yasso
Thurs ~4 easy
Fri ~ REST
Sat ~ 5K
Sun ~13 easy

On Saturday I will be racing for a tune up.  It will be great to see what kind of progress I've made.

Happy Running!