Sunday, October 11, 2009

1/2 Marathon Training: 12 Mile Run

The alarm goes off at 6am and Annie and I hit the snooze button 6 times! Yes, every 9 minutes the buzzer went off and we could not get out of bed. Partly because the weather dropped down to the mid-50's and it was cool but also because we were both tired!

Anyways we managed to drag our butts out of bed and decided we would do our run on the Kingwood Greenbelt trails. These are a series of paved trails that run along the roads and through the woods for like 75 miles. We needed a change of scenery and it ended up being a lot of fun running a different route! And since we got up so late it was actually light out when we were running ... I like the wee hours of the morning better. Less traffic and less people!

It was completely overcast and drizzling which ended up being the best running weather ever! With each week we are adding distance and also trying to figure out our nutritional needs so we can be prepared on race day. Annie and I split a whole wheat bagel when we woke up and had some water as well. During the run we each had 2 packs of GU vanilla bean gel and 20 oz of Gatorade. That is roughly about 200 calories an hour which seemed to be about right for this distance. I felt good during the run and good after so I am starting to feel pretty good about the fuel intake!

The run itself was really solid. We parked at a Walgreens and started off down the greenbelts. We ran through the lake park and then all the way to the back of Kingwood. Then looped around and came back to the front. We did the 12 miles in 2 hours and 5 minutes which is about a 10:40/mile pace. As required by the training plans (both Higdon and RW) we run this long day at about 75-80% of raceday pace. This way you add the distance on your legs and build up your aerobic base each time out. So far, so good! At this distance I could have maintained about a 9:30/mile pace and still would have felt pretty good. I'd like to be able to maintain a 9:00/mile pace so I still have some work to do!

Tomorrow is going to be a swimming day. I have some early appointments so I am going to bed right now!

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

4 comments:

  1. Nice run man! Nothing like a change of scenery and some good weather to motivate you.

    As for the alarm clock, nine times? Daaaaaaang brother.

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  2. Sounds like you guys had a great long run! 12 miles in 2:05 is great. You are adapting to long distance endurance runs very well.

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  3. Dude...put that alarm clock across the room!

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  4. I usually wake up the second the alarm goes off. I must have been very tired!

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