Today’s run was scheduled to be 18 miles. This would be my longest run ever. And considering that I was still kind of feeling fatigued and sore from yesterday’s off-road duathlon race, I wasn’t sure how I would do. The Hal Higdon training schedule that I have been following said to run the long run easy. Maybe 1 to 2 minutes per miles slower than marathon pace. I wanted to keep my heart rate in the aerobic zone (about 70% Karvonen method or less the 150bpm). I decided to run at a 12:00 minute per mile pace, and walk every 5th minute at a 15:00 minute per mile pace (ala Jeff Galloway). It took a long time, but I finished the 18 miles with less difficulty than I was expecting. It just took a long time.
I got a little bit of a rest following the run, before I had to head off to karate class. Next week is a cut-back week so I am scheduled to run only 13 miles on Sunday (and 8 miles on Saturday I think).
Running the 26.2 marathon miles is looking more and more doable all the time. I don’t know how fast I’ll be able to run the 26.2 miles, but it will be fun. I am sure I will run them faster on the course than on the treadmill!

Posted by Rob in Running on October 22nd, 2006 |