A Good Half.

This morning I headed over to Rocky Neck state park for the Niantic Bay half marathon. Since I decided not to do full this year - my goals have been to (1) lose a little weight, (2) gain some strength and (3) run a good half marathon. I had done 3 previously, but never as a goal race for the season. This year it all came together as I did 1:36:08 ~ 7:20 min/mile pace. That's well over 10 minutes faster than previous attempts! I ran a pretty nice even pace and felt strong throughout. I even passed a few people on the last few miles. Confidence is a funny thing - I think last years marathon made this much easier from a mental standpoint. Even after feeling like I was working hard after 2 or 3 miles, I still kept pushing - I wasn't going to have a bad day - and I ended up running a very good half.

Half Marathon; Half-Way Point. Week 8 is in the Books

Yesterday I headed out to Giant's Neck in East Lyme for the Niantic Bay 1/2 Marathon. I did this race 2 years ago with 'eh' results. My pace then was 8:21 - 21 seconds slower than the New Haven 20K I did a month earlier. Nevertheless, that was my fastest half (of the 2 I'd attempted) and therfore my PR. So yesterday, I needed to do 15 miles - so I started early - an easy 2 miler warm-up. The entire morning was rainy and although it felt cold out of the car, it actually felt a little humid running. Since I have a 18 miler scheduled for Friday, I didn't want to go out too fast - combined with the congested start, put me at 18:30 after only 2 miles. I decided to pick it up then, and probably past a good 1/2-2/3 of the field coming up from the back over the last 11 miles - which I finished at an 8:16 pace - so the overall pace was 8:24. Just off my pace from 2 years ago. For the first time ever, I actually regret going out too slow - but feel pretty good about the strong finish. It was a great feeling peeling of good-solid-fast miles for over 10 miles.

I'm going to count it as my 'marathon pace' run for this week, as well as my long run for last week - since I don't want to do 2 hard workouts between the long runs - which are only 5 days apart. So that'll mean I'll do my Yasso800s and an easy pace Bluff Point run on Tuesday/Wednesday; long run Friday and either 7 or 8 miles around home on Sunday. This week I finished with 38 miles. An extra rest day is in order since both achillies are sore.