A tale of a near-perfect run

Today's was a solid 10 miler for a handful of reasons. 

First, With the significantly increased workload that my midday running (recently) has forced me to endure, running in the early morning is so much easier. With the struggles (relatively speaking, due to the midday heat and humidity) I've experienced on midday runs, today's run felt darn near effortless.

Secondly, I am within 5 days of starting "true" marathon training. I'm calling the past 2 months "extended base building". In both June and July, I have run 170 miles each. A solid base building effort considering it's the middle of summer in Georgia, right? That being said, next week will see the start of speedwork, intervals and hill training. Since I've been consistent in keeping my pace in check during base build up, the coming 2 months will really help me get accustomed to marathon pace, faster speeds, and continued endurance gains.

Lastly, the early miles this morning really took a bit of effort to work through because of some ongoing quad fatigue. This is likely (actually, it's surely) due to the weekend midday runs and the dehydration, muscle breakdown, etc. that running in 98 degrees/95% humidity brings with it to the party. (Again, I continue to offer further proof that I am an absolutely idiot when it comes to doing rational things such as this....)

All in all, this was a solid run for the day, and I will be following it up tomorrow morning with another 8-10 mile tempo-like effort. Today's run was to be an "easy" effort, which for me is about 30 seconds slower than marathon pace. Tomorrow I am going to mix in about 3 miles of easy/warm-up running followed by 6-7 miles of marathon pace action. It's always good to shake it up to allow you to get more familiar with what marathon pace "feels" like.


Good stuff.