go long
i slept in this morning, got geared up and headed out the door at around 6:45AM. i brought along my ipod shuffle to help me out with some motivation and a gel packet to avoid the dreaded bonk. my route headed south on comanche then east on the glacial drumlin trail towards town. i then picked up the fox river bike trail and headed south to a county park on the outskirts of town.
at 7.5 miles, i made a 180 to double back on my outbound course with a few ticks past 60 minutes elapsed. on my way back my friend ryan – who maintains hillrunner.com – was out for his morning constitutional as well. he opted to join up with me and we chatted about a bunch of stuff including the olympics. after 3 miles he headed for home and i made the turn off the drumlin trail.
i fished my ipod out of my jersey pocket and plugged myself in for the last few miles. i made it back to my house in about 1:59 with 15 miles covered – but i wasn’t done yet. i continued north on comanche, which includes a slow but steady rise in elevation until my watch said 16 miles. i then did a 180 and rolled myself home stopping my watch at 17 miles with 2:14:17 elapsed. (7:54 avg pace)
MTD – 118 miles
YTD – 1,243 miles
Odometer – 27,581 miles
as i’ve said before, i usually look at the 12 weeks of training leading to the marathon as an indicator of success. here’s an update of my weekly mileage breakdown…
wk 1 – 52 miles
wk 2 – 50 miles
wk 3 – 46.5 miles
wk 4 – 54 miles
wk 5 – 57 miles
…only 49 more days until the lakefront marathon.