Marathon pace run

I'm even more sold on the early Sept marathon but I still haven't bought my bib: I have to evade the family curse first. In early August, we'll be going to the lake where my grandmother broke her hip, my aunt broke her foot, and I did something to my foot last year...I didn't get it checked out but I couldn't run for almost 2 months (stupidly, I still tried to get in a run here or there before accepting that I had to rest, which delayed recovery), and then I couldn't jog for almost 2 months after that. I think I cracked something while landing on a rock the wrong way. Anyway, I'll likely sign up for the race before that trip; regardless, I'll be extra careful and actually wear trail shoes on the gravel/rock bits.

With my eye on early Sept, I did a marathon-pace workout this morning. I didn't feel like getting up at 6:30 after staying up until midnight or so, but with the upcoming heat and humidity, I didn't have much choice. Fortunately, I was well hydrated. Unfortunately, I was kind of nervous about the workout. My jogging pace is about 10:00-10:30/mile these days, and my marathon pace should be 8:15-20/mile. My marathon pace wasn't plucked out of thin air: I plugged my recent slightly saggy 5K result into a VDOT calculator. Saggy = easy, right? However, it would be faster than my 2 slow 1/2 marathons this winter. I decided that I'd be happy with 8:25/mile.

After a 1/2 mile jog (over 10:00/mile), I picked things up.

Mile 1: 8:34. Too slow, but what was one slow mile? I had to ease into it and get used to easing into it. Not like I'm going to toss off a few warm-up miles before the marathon.

Mile 2: 8:27. Almost there. Keeping things easy. I also had my first gel, a Gu Roctane. Maybe having some at the beginning instead of just at the end will help.

Mile 3: 8:23. cool. It was comfortable but still sort of foreign. I noticed that my breathing was a loose 2-2..this would be my guide. I also noticed that my weird shoulder glitch was acting up. It's not painful at first, more of a flaw in form caused in part by holding a dog leash for many miles. My right shoulder drops, my arms become T-Rex-like, and this throws everything off to the point where I get off balance enough to step to the side now and then (the funky balance thing also crops up when I've been exposed to wheat). I've been practicing squaring my shoulders and moving my arms more.

Mile 4: 8:27. By now I was on the course, the uphill 'back' end. This is sort of daunting, too, some short but steep sections. Running there more often, especially in MP and tempo runs, should flatten the inclines somewhat. I tried to imagine them more flat, and as an opportunity to switch up activated muscles and give some a rest.

Mile 5: 8:11. Things were starting to click but I still had to keep resetting my shoulders. But this is a more natural pace for me somehow than 8:20-30.

Mile 6. 8:08. Ok. This was mostly downhill and a bit of a break.

Mile 7. 8:18. Going back uphill (I turned around to repeat the worst section of the course). Fortunately, before the first incline, some guy cut into the path ahead of me and he was going at the perfect pace! I was really grateful just coast behind someone for a while. I dropped him at the top to have another gel. This was an expresso love--it has a Gaz stamp of approval and since I like coffee during runs, I decided to try it. It was better than I expected, and the lingering of flavour was actually kind of nice.

Mile 8. 8:09. ok.

Mile 9. 8:05. ok, though I was starting to get kind of tired of resetting my shoulders. But it has to be done. And I was getting kind of tired in general...it wasn't bad and breathing was still pretty easy but my muscles were feeling the effort and it was starting to feel kind of hot. This mile seemed kind of long.

Mile 10. 8:07. ok.

0.89. 8:07/mile. ok. I could have kept going. I thought of taking it to 11 miles, but, nope, I'm going to save the extra for the next workout.

Total 10.89 miles in 1:30:01. Pace per mile: 8:16. NICE!!
Same irregularity that cropped up last time I did MP workouts: I don't actually go at the marathon pace, just around it. Oh, well. I'm happy with how it turned out. My expectation was to feel burnt after a few miles around 8:40 or so.

No bodyrock today: we're doing the Spartan race tomorrow. That'll be a good core workout.