Spring Has Sprung

3/5/11

18 miles

2:36:24

8:41 avg pace

It’s a beautiful day here in Philly!  Even if it feels like Spring for only 1 day, I’ll take it!  It was so nice to run without being all bundled up.  The training plan called for 18 miles at 9:16 pace.  My goal was to try and stick with this pace (and not run faster) since I had a case of brick legs earlier this week.  I took Thursday and Friday off from running and my legs felt really good today.  My Garmin kept jumping all around with my pace so it was hard to tell how fast I was running.  I kept telling myself to slow down.  I finally gave up and ran based on feel.  I really had no idea I was running an 8:41 average pace.  I was just enjoying the weather and my iPod (I normally run music-free).   I thought my average pace would be at 9:00 or just under.  You can imagine my surprise when I saw 8:41!  That’s faster that my goal marathon pace.  I was happy and also kinda like “oh crap I shouldn’t have ran that fast”.

My split times really surprised me.
M1 – 9:01
M2 – 8:51
M3 – 8:52
M4 – 8:51
M5 – 8:48 –> shot blok #1
M6 – 8:40
M7 – 8:40
M8 – 8:38
M9 – 8:45
M10 – 8:39 –> shot blok #2
M11 – 8:35
M12 – 8:38
M13 – 8:21
M14 – 8:34 –> shot blok #3
M15 – 8:26
M16 – 8:34
M17 – 8:36
M18 – 8:50

I got faster towards the end!  What’s going on?!

As soon as I got home I immediately did some forward folds, downward dogs, and hurts-so-good pigeon pose.  Then I chugged some chocolate milk….and took an ice bath.  I normally don’t do ice baths but given today’s pace and the fact that my legs were heavy this week I thought I should do whatever I can to speed recovery.  Like a good blogger, I grabbed my camera…

I stayed in the ice bath for about 10 minutes.  That was enough.  I hope it was worth it!

Tomorrow I am going to hear Jack Daniels speak about his Run S.M.A.R.T. Project.  He is speaking at a local school and I figured why not check it out.  I’ll do a full recap of his talk tomorrow.

Enjoy your Saturday!