Back to work

After talking things over with a very experienced trail runner, I have decided to slightly modify some of my training. He told me, and I agree that the majority of my runs need to be faster than my expected marathon pace. Today I put that into practice during my 8 mile run.

I was feeling the affects of some not so good eating over the weekend and I could actually “feel” the heaviness. This got me very frustrated initially. When I reached the 1.5 mile mark, I was about 15 seconds behind where I should have been. This may not sound like much but in running it can be very tough to make up. I started to feel a little better after the 2 mile mark and that’s when I picked up a little more speed. It helped that I had a slight decline going down Westney Road to Kingston Road. As I turned the corner and headed East on Kingston there is a hill about ½ KM long. I knew that I had to charge up the hill so off I went. I was clearly winded after that but happy at the same time. I allowed my breathing to gradually return before turning the corner at Harwood Avenue.

I headed North on Harwood and there is a slight incline in the road so that added to the challenge. I have done this route so many times that I know every piece of sidewalk there is. At the 5 mile mark (corner of Harwood and Rossland) I was now seconds ahead of where I needed to be. However, I was starting to feel tired. Even though I was heading home with 3 miles to go and a long downhill in front of me I had to fight the urge to slow down.

I thought about my race and how I’ll have to go through some ups and downs and how some of the race I will be ahead of my pace and other times I will be behind. The bottom line is that I have to finish strong and in control. That seemed to help and spark me as I picked up the pace even more now.

I needed to finish the 8 mile run in 64 minutes and my final time was 63 minutes so I managed to make up the 15 seconds and then shave off another full minute. My last mile was actually my fastest mile of the trip.