The first four words of the title have to be read as if addressing a naughty dog. Bad split, bad runner! Blogger won't let me italicize titles, or at least I haven't found out how yet.
20 mile run yesterday. I ran around a lake instead of my usual hilly course because I'm freaking tired of hills. When I went out I totally blew my first 2 miles, as in both were sub 8 pace and they should have been about 9 - went out way too fast. Which, thinking back on our earlier post about split times, we all know means not a good thing. I had the hardest time slowing down without big long hills to slow me down. So I knew right away even splits were out, unless I expected to have a few sub-8's in me around mile 20, which will NEVER happen. About mile 7 I decided to just push as hard as I could for the first 13 miles, build up a good cushion, so that if I died in the last 7 miles (which I expected to do) I'd still have an ok time. I did the first 13.1 miles in 1 hour 49 minutes, which is a very respectable time. So at that point I knew I could do 10 minute miles the rest of the run and still finish in under a 3 hour, which is the goal. And I did end up slowing down, but my final time was 2 hours 53 minutes, which is an average 8:37 pace, which is WAY better than I expected. That is I believe the fastest yet I've done a 20 mile run in.
What was interesting (to me, anyway) was that in the last 7 miles I felt like I was running really slow, because I was really tired, but I consistently kept coming in 9:30 or less. I'm taking that as a good sign - if 9:30 is like a really slow mile for me it bodes well for my ability to pull of 26.2 at a 9 minute pace. Especially if I can get the damn splits right.
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