twenty two under three
i "slept in" until 5AM today. dana met me at my house and we drove out to wales to meet my friend jeff. we headed west along the glacial drumlin towards the town of dousman. running that far out there is a treat for me because starting from home, i usually make a turn around shortly after wales. regardless, we rolled into dousman and the paved trail turned to packed dirt which was a welcome relief. we ran about 7.25 miles the first hour, which was pretty reasonable.
after running through dousman, we continued westbound toward the town of sullivan. after we rolled 11 miles in 91 minutes we decided to make a 180 and head back to wales. we weren’t too far outside of sullivan, but we wanted to be sure we’d get back to our cars without overextending ourselves.
the run back to wales seemed to primarily be downhill. we rolled back into dousman and stopped for some water and downed some energy gels. at this point the trail was paved again which wasn’t as comfortable as the packed dirt we had been running on. i did take a moment to stretch my back and hammys a bit as they both were beginning to ache.
from dousman to wales we caught a nice breeze or two which made it feel awful comfortable. we passed 20 miles in 2:43 and began counting down the distance remaining. our pace quickened a little over the last mile and we finished 22 miles in 2:58 and change for an average pace of about 8:07. our effort was also a "negative split" in that we ran the 2nd half faster than the 1st half.
overall, it was a great run. great company, great weather and a great effort.
MTD – 50 miles
YTD – 1415 miles
Odometer – 27,753 miles
here’s an update of my weekly mileage breakdown in preparation for marathon #20…
wk 1 – 52 miles
wk 2 – 50 miles
wk 3 – 46.5 miles
wk 4 – 54 miles
wk 5 – 57 miles
wk 6 – 56.25 miles
wk 7 – 45 miles
wk 8 – 70 miles
28 days until the lakefront marathon. i’m planning one more long run next weekend then i’ll begin cutting back the volume of miles and perhaps bump up the intensity a notch.