Friday, April 4, 2008

Tomorrow's the Last Long Run

Tomorrow I'm scheduled to do 22 or maybe 24 miles. It will be the last long run before I start tapering for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. The past week of running has been pretty good, but I am sort of looking forward to the taper. Last Saturday was a 22 miler with a four mile fast finish, which I described in my last blog entry. Tomorrow I will probably go slow the whole way.

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday I did 4 mile runs at noon. They were pretty close to marathon pace, but felt very easy. Wednesday I did a 4 mile very easy run at noon, 9:45 pace. I needed the rest from Tuesday evening's run. Tuesday evening I did an 8 mile tempo run with Jeff and Toby. We started against a pretty strong wind. Here are the mile splits:

Against the wind: 8:03, 8:21, 8:13, 8:18
With the wind: 7:43, 7:50, 7:47, 7:16

Average pace was 7:57. I was pretty tired after the run and slept well that night.

Thursday evening I started out doing 6 miles at marathon pace. I got 4 miles of running in, but on the way back I passed Sarah, a 13 year old girl who runs with our group. She was beginning to feel a little lightheaded, probably from being overheated in the high humidity, and I walked the 2 miles back to the store with her and Stefanie. I didn't mind at all taking the break from the running. Sarah is going to be a great runner. She is planning on racing a half marathon in the fall, and is already up to 5 miles in her training runs. I can't wait to cheer her on!

Turnout for the long run may be light tomorrow. I have some friends, led by Coach Kathy, in the Paris Marathon, and Brian and others are going to the Eisenhower Marathon. If weather cooperates, he should have a good time, I'm guessing close to a 3:45, but we'll see.

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