Overall feeling pretty good about Boston, but, not sure about what my pace will be. I was hoping for a 3:05 (7:03 pace), but I really don't know if I can do that. I think I'd be comfortable with 7:15 pace which is a 3:10 time, that's how I felt today anyway.
Since switching to the SDTC RNR_Boston training group about a month ago (first long run on 2/16) I've been getting much faster due mostly to the weekend long runs. I used to do my long runs in around 8:30- 9:00 pace, but these are longer and faster. The first one on Feb 16 was 19.3 miles @ 7:55/mile. Until then I'd not really been running faster than stated above, except for a little speed work. Since then it has been different and I'm lucky I ran into Hutch at Mission Bay one day.
The volume has gone way up:
Nov '12 - 86 miles @ 10:04/mile
Dec '12 - 143 miles @ 9:39/mile
Jan '13 - 187 miles @ 9:08/mile
Feb '13 - 201 miles @ 8:44/mile
March '13 (est) - 240 miles @ 8:05/mile
So I'm tired, and the weekend runs are stable at around 7:50/mile give or take a few 10 seconds.
This week will by 70 miles - as will next. I'm hoping that the taper will be enough to get me a good time in boston and i'm not going to run too fast going forward.
Today - Saturday 23 March 2013
We ran 17.8 miles, and while most went ok, I had some stomach issues which that took me about 2 minutes and I fell off the pace. Let me try to jot down the food for the last 24 hours.
Breakfast today - 1/2 a Green Machine drink, 8 oz coffee
6 pm yesterday - plate of spaghetti and meatballs, 3 pieces sourdough bread, water, 3 oatmeal cookies
noon yesterday - tuna sandwich on whole wheat bread, apple
Breakfast yesterday - 2 x servings of oatmeal, raisins, honey
Todays run - I warmed up a bit, then we took off a a decent pace (7:23) and then I slowed down after the first aid station to the 8 min range. I then had the potty break, and ran alone to Nautilus, had a dixie cup of gatorade with Hutch and than ran up that BIG 700' hill, that keeps getting steeper the whole time. Near the top two the fast/young women passed me going very quickly. We had another quick break at the top and began the MP training down the hill. I was planning on running the 9 miles in at 7:03/mile, but it did not quite work that way.
down the hill was of course easy to exceed the pace, but between miles 14 - 16 I had to focus to keep the pace under 7:30, which bothered me. I was running alone past the tourists at Mission Bay who were out strolling and I think runinng along the road would have been much easier than the endless turns and people avoidance, which was distracting and seemed to slow me down.
On the last 2 mile stretch, I picked it back up to about 7:15 - 6:45/mile without a lot of problems, except when I had to cross Sea World Drive.
Here's the course and the splits:
