20.28 mile Long Run
February 28th, 2009
Instead of the same running map (with additional miles added), I’ve posted my mile splits for perusing. As you can see, around the half marathon mark (13.1 miles) I tend to slow down a lot. Maybe I should just do halfs then? Jeez. At least the first 15 were under 8:00. I did not wear my heart rate monitor, since I plan on not wearing it during the marathon. I want my training to mimic my race, somewhat.
Andy, thanks for the comments about my race report. What race are you training for? Youve got some pretty fast times there and you havent even tapered yet.
I’ve got the National Marathon coming up on 3/21. My taper should have begun after this past weekend’s 20-miler, but I’m contemplating one more 20-miler just to try out a different hydration/fueling strategy. For my long runs I’ve been consuming 1 GU (with little water to wash it down) not too long before the run, then 1 GU + 8 oz. of water at one hour in, and another GU + 8 oz. of Gatorade at the 2 hour mark. I know this is very low, but I hate eating while I run, as well as carrying many heavy flasks around me. However, I may try to bump this up somehow, as I’m afraid of tightening up during the last 10K in the main event. I felt sluggish towards the end of my 20, and was surprised to see that I only slowed down to 8:20. It seemed much slower.
Your race report was very informative. It made us remember to respect the distance. Nothing is given at 26.2. Hopefully, I’ll have a good race report in a few weeks. But, you never know…