Double Update: Saturday Long Run + 2x2 mi threshold run

Saturday Long Run

14 miles on the docket, with the last 3 at 7:15 pace. I plotted a loop that was more of a big irregular square, starting in the middle of the southern edge, which was paved sidewalk. The eastern edge was bike trail, to around mile 4. Then sidewalk following a major road on the northern edge, for 3.5 miles. Then a bit before mile 8, the western edge was back onto trail (in this case packed dirt road). Then back on road at mile 10. This section didn't have sidewalks until around mile 11.5, but traffic was light. I got out around 6:45am, and the day was beginning to heat up by the time I got late in the run.  

I was pleasantly surprised by how good I felt. A couple nights decent sleep will do wonders. And I had just swapped in new running shoes for this run. I ticked along at 7:30-40 pace for most of the first half of the run, slowing down a bit when I get onto the dirt road. Right around mile 9, I suddenly had a bad cramp in my left calf. Bad luck! I think it just got overstressed from navigating all the irregular lumps and divots on the dirt road, although I had also been sweating a good deal, so might be electrolyte depletion too.  

Mile 10 was a painful limp at around 9 min pace, and I thought things looked grim for what was supposed to be the "fast finish" section of the run. I was pleasantly surprised to feel it loosening, though, and by mile 11 my stride had opened up and I was running almost normally. I accelerated as per plan, and wound up running 6:48, 6:52, 6:48 for the last 3 miles. (All by Garmin watch, but at a macro scale it tracked with my google pedometer estimates). 

I felt pretty pleased with myself, but my calf stayed tight through the next couple days. I haven't had much time for self-care, foam-rolling, etc, just the squats and toe-drops that I do habitually. Nonetheless it did get about 80% better by today. 

 

Tuesday 2 x 2mile Threshold Intervals

These are supposed to be run at ~6:20 mile pace, which should be AT pace or thereabouts. Indeed, based on my performance on the last long run, this seemed very plausible. But I would say, similar to last week's workout, that this feels harder than AT pace, maybe 90% of my max effort for a long interval like this. I think lack of speedwork (and age, ofc) have definitely affected my top range, so there's just not a lot of a "gear" up past there--at least not right now! The next training phase (starting in ~2 weeks) is going to be more focused on strength/speedwork. 

Anyway. Nice cool morning--I did almost the entire run on bike trail, with only a couple of dodgy road crossings. Flat and shady--definitely can't complain about conditions. 

Interval 1: 6:12, 6:41 == 12:53 (+13s)

Interval 2: 6:23, 6:22 == 12:45 (+5s)

Paced the 2nd interval better, which I could feel during the run.  All in all, feel OK about it--calf was still not 100%, and only had 1 night of good sleep after a couple nights of interruptions.