Long Run PR & Runner's Edge KC

Today's Workout:
                  Course:  Downtown Lees Summit Out &  Back
               Workout:   Fast Finish Long Run
                     Miles:   21          
            Total Time:  2:40:03
              Avg Pace:  7:27/pace overall   7:02/pace last 10 miles
                  Avg HR:  149
     Elevation Gain:  885 ft
 Calories Burned:   2995
                     Temp:   75 Degrees, Humidity 70%, Wind 5SW
 Miles This Week:   83

First off today, my SHOUT OUT (Nelly On The Run style) goes to my beautiful wife, Michael of Slowly Tri-Ing who completed her first Half-Ironman this past week.  She's awesome and has a lot more heart than I do!!!  She never quits ... congrats sweetie - you did it!!!

Today's run went pretty well, but not great.  As you know, I'm a huge headphone and iPod while running advocate!  Yes ... I love music while I run ... and yes elitist running snob, I know that makes me less of a person that you - and I'm okay with that.  But I've had a lot of trouble with my two iPods this week - I think they finally have been sweated out.  And when I tried to use them this morning ... they were both toast!  So I ran the 21 mile long run without music.  And for those elitist running snobs who say that iPods are an unfair advantage because they make you run faster ... SUCK IT!  I still ran my fastest long training run ever.

The plan was to run the last 10 under 7:00/pace, I didn't quite make that - they were at 7:02/pace, but my last mile before cool down was 6:53, so that was good.  Following are the splits from today's long run:

               Mile 1 Warm Up:    9:09
 Miles 2-11 Slow Tempo:    8:03, 8:00, 7:51, 7:50, 7:47, 7:47, 7:22, 7:33, 7:27, 7:25
Miles 12-20 Fast Tempo:    7:07, 6:57, 6:52, 7:02, 6:55, 7:06, 7:00, 7:04, 6:53
           Mile 21 Cool Down:    8:45

I joined a speed class on Tuesday evenings with The Runner's Edge Kansas City.  With about 400 members, they're a pretty big running club in our area that runs a ton of races together.  Last week was the first class and it went really well.  It's headed by Eladio Valdez III, a really cool guy who will really help push me this summer to make my 3:09 marathon goal in the fall.  The only kinda weird thing is that it's at 6:30pm every week.  I usually have all of my training complete by 6:30am???  So changing my speed work on Tuesdays to a few hours before bedtime was a little strange and screwed up my schedule a little - but hopefully it makes me a better runner.

The Tuesday workout consisted of a mile warm up, followed by some strides, then a sand workout that was pretty taxing.  After that we ran a mile at Tempo Pace - but our group kinda pushed it a little faster than Tempo Pace to about 6:15/mile.  After that we did 10 one minute Fartleks at 5:45/pace, followed by one minute of rest.  Finally, we ran a half mile cool down.  Eladio shortened the work out a little because it was about 100 degrees when we started.  Even though I had ran 7 miles in the morning that day, I thought the workout was pretty easy - but I still got quite a bit out of it.  I can tell it's gonna get competitive with the guys in my group.  I led the pace in the speed work in my group on Tuesday ... and it's my intent to lead it every week.  But there are some good runners with me, so we'll see.

Again this week, the main thing I have to report is how well everything is going.  I passed 1,600 miles for the year and I feel great!  I think I'm faster than I've ever been and I still have 12 weeks until Project 3:09 is put to the test at the Prairie Fire Marathon.  To be honest, the evening speed training kinda threw me off for a couple of days.  I just didn't recover the way I needed to after the workout.  Also, I've had a couple people ask me about my daily core workout - I'll try to post on it this week if you're interested.  Hopefully I'll keep up the intensity the rest of the summer.  Hope your running is going great too!
... be great today!