This Week's Long Run

Coach Christine Wanted: 12 miles with the last 6 miles at race pace
I Delivered: 12 miles with 4 of the last 6 at race pace

This week's long run was an "easy" one after last week's epic 22 miler but I knew it was going to be tough because it was my second chance at running the last half of a long run faster than the first half. After my epic fail the last time, I was hoping that I would do better this time. In my mind, I approached the run as two different 6 mile runs. The first one would be an easy warm-up type run and then I would turn around and start to run at my marathon race pace. I picked a route that was an out and back so that it really was like two runs.

The first part of the run was easy, I tried to keep the pace between 9:00 and 10:00 minutes per mile and just be relaxed and enjoying the run. Of course all of my pump it up get psyched songs came on during this relaxed part but I tried to just stay calm. When I hit 6 miles, I turned around and picked up my legs. The first couple of miles were a little too fast but it was soooo much easier than the last time I had tried this. I kept my head in the game and stayed on pace until mile 10 when woooosh, the air suddenly went out of my tires. It was partly because that was right after the turn off for our old house and my body is still tuned into being done then So the fact that I still had to run 2 more miles was a bit of a let down for my mind and my legs. And there was a little hill right there that I struggled up. But I stayed in it and while the last 2 miles were off pace, they were still pretty close.

All in all I was happy with how it went, I feel like I'm understanding more how to run negative splits and my body is responding to my demands that it run faster at the end. I'm realizing that it is the exact opposite of my previous race day strategy which was go out fast and then limp to the finish. Coach Christine is happy with my progress on this concept and she has been reassuring me that this is the way to go on race day. She said 99% of world records are run on negative or even splits, I forgot to ask her about the figures for Boston Qualifiers.

So now I'm in the final month of training. I have one more gigantic run, 20 miles, this weekend and then I start to taper before the race. My emotions are all over the place, some days I feel super confident and ready to take it on and other days my heart starts pounding and I break into a sweat just thinking about running the race. I'm really trying to push out the negative emotions and focus on the positive ones. I'm repeating affirmations and doing lots of visualization of success.

Post-run toucan shot

 "Believe that you can run farther or faster. Believe that you're young enough, old enough, strong enough, and so on to accomplish everything you want to do. Don't let worn-out beliefs stop you from moving beyond yourself." -John Bingham