20 miles

Day 605 - August 28, 2010

The marathon training schedule said twenty for today and I decided to run the Charlottesville 10 miler course twice. My friend Mike decided to join me for the entire thing and Roger met us at the track for the first 10. We started really slow at 5:40 this morning and the first mile was around 8:30 pace. Over the next few miles we gradually loosened up and the miles passed more quickly. I think our average pace was below 8 min/mile by mile 5, but definitely by mile 6. Normally when I run the 10 miler course, my body starts telling me we are almost done around mile 8 and by mile 9, it is shouting at me it is time to stop. But today, I was pleasantly surprised that the first 10 miles clicked off rather effortlessly as far as 10 miles goes. We finished the first lap in 78:30.

After a short hydration break and saying our good-byes to Roger, Mike and I started out on the second loop. I would have been perfectly happy to maintain that pace and run an even split for the second lap, but that was not to be. We started out much quicker than the first lap and got to mile 11 in about 7:55 and followed up with the next three miles or so at 7:50ish pace. As always happens, we picked up the pace running the long downhill on Preston Ave, but we never slowed down after that. In fact, we averaged 7:10's for the last three miles. Our second lap was nearly 5 minutes faster than our first!

Back in April, Mike ran a PR on that same course and finished in 75+ minutes. Today, on the second lap of a 20 miler, he ran 2 minutes faster than that. Way to go Mike!

Tomorrow I'll take it a bit easier. My legs are pretty sore from today. But I feel confident that I am in good shape and the training is progressing better than expected. Nine weeks to go!