MP MINUS 30

First, I have a couple of final thoughts on the Ironman before moving on. I don’t know about the rest of the country, but 55 and rain is not normal during the summer. So I think not being acclimated to those conditions made for an even tougher day. I’ve never seen so many people wearing trash bags and mylar blankets while running. Halfway through her run, I nearly missed Sara. She went by on her way to the turn-around wearing one thing and came back 10 minutes later wearing a trash bag.

Also, while watching the race inspired me to add some crunches to my routine lately, it also reminded me that there’s more to competing than having the “ideal” body type. It’s more about what’s between the ears and believing in yourself.

Last night I met my training group at the Macalester track for the following workout; 2 mile warm-up, 5-6 x 1 “mile” at marathon pace minus 30 seconds with a 2:00 rest, 2 mile cool-down.

Given that my goal MP is 6:40, I was shooting for 6:08 for the 1600 meter repeats (the extra 2 seconds were to make up for the extra 9 meters needed to get to a mile). I ended up running the first 4 reps on the track between 6:12 and 6:17. We got kicked off the track after that because of a soccer game and we ended up running one more on the roads.

While I never quite got down to 6:08, the 6:15 pace that I averaged felt extremely relaxed and controlled.

This morning I ran a very easy 5 mile recovery run. Lately I’ve been running these around 44-45 minutes. Today it took 47 minutes as I was running 9:30 pace. It's amazing how easy 6:15 pace can feel, yet how hard 9:30 pace can feel. I’ll double back tonight to help keep my mileage on-pace for 80 miles this week.

Finally, it looks like some of these elite blogs have been updated lately.

Today’s quote of the day is something I need to keep in mind on October 22nd:

“Moral of the story is that no one should ever chase a time. If you get into the race and compete well, the times always follow!” - Matt Tegenkamp