Day 53

A hard 7 today... plan called for 7 miles at marathon pace. I decided to run the same seven mile course I ran on Tuesday but in reverse so that instead of going down the really steep hill and up the long gradual hill, I'd go down the gradual hill and up the really steep one. Also, I used this as an opportunity to test out the Virtual Partner on my Garmin Forerunner 305. That way that it works is that you program in the distance and pace that you want to run and then the Garmin tells you how much distance ahead or behind you are from a virtual runner who is keeping the specified pace exactly. So I set the Garmin for 7 miles at a 8 min/mile pace... let's see how I did.

Distance: 7.0
Duration: 52:12
Pace: 7:27
HR Avg/Max: 161/181
notes:

Guess I can't pace very well. I didn't want to start too slow so I pushed it a little and the next thing I know I was way ahead of pace. I hit the first mile in 7:10 which put me .11 miles ahead of the virtual partner. At this point I said too hell with pace, I'm going to whip this Virtual Partner's ass for trying to keep up with me. I hit the second mile in 7:11 and the third in 7:13... At this point I was starting to wear down a little and was wondering what the hell was I thinking going out so hard, but I also knew that even if I slowed down to 8:30 pace i'd still finish the 7 in goal time so I kept on keeping on... 4th mile was 7:38 but it felt brutal. Then came the fifth mile which had the really steep up hill... man I was dreading it, but I just powered through... 5th mile 8:17 with the heart rate hitting 177. I figured that after that hill I'd be done but next thing I know I was feeling better than I had the whole run. 6th mile I hit in 7:54. One mile left and I was ready to see what I had left. I decided not to go all out but to try to stay relaxed while keeping my breathing steady and lengthening my stride. I knocked the last mile in 7:02 with a sprint at the finish.

I can tell as I'm writing this that I'm going to pay for this in my long run tomorrow but I couldn't help myself. Hopefully it doesn't bite me in the ass. In retrospect I'm happy with the time but not so happy with myself discipline. Eventually I'm going to have to learn what marathon pace really is... oh well, maybe next week.