ALL-STAR BREAK AUGUST

Has it really been over three weeks since I updated this thing? Ugh. No news is good news in this case I guess! The training plan has been going well and every week I'm a little more confident in my abilities to run the marathon. There have been a couple things of note since I last wrote, so I'll just do some bullet points:

• I just got done with what I am calling my "all-star break." You know how sports leagues shut things down about halfway through the season and have the all-star game? Well, not that I had an all-star game but the last two weeks have been my "break." And by break I mean I didn't do a long run either of those weeks. I did keep up my mileage and even did 32 miles last week on vacation, so I haven't been totally slacking off. However, it is back to reality tomorrow with a 20 miler!

• Speaking of 20 milers, I did my first one in three years on August 4th along the Fanno Creek Trail with the Portland Marathon Clinic. My long runs to that point had gone pretty well so I honestly wasn't even nervous. The run went great! While my legs did feel a little tired toward the end, it was not bad at all. The best 20 miler I can remember. Even the rest of the day and the next day my legs felt pretty good. Couldn't quite believe it. I think I was definitely struggling with some low grade arthritis for a few years before I was formally diagnosed. My legs have felt so good this training cycle.
• I've now done two tempo runs of six miles where my average pace was below 8:00/mile. These are my first sub-8 tempo runs in two and a half years. One of them was more steady, 7:55 pace +/- 10 seconds a mile... the other one, last night, was more of an "accidental" tempo. I ran fast to Sunstone since I left my house a little late, so I did a 8:25 mile there. Nothing too crazy. The first mile with Sunstone was 8:50. Again, reasonable. Well, then someone took off and I followed them and I ended up finishing the rest below 8:00 including a 7:18 mile that almost killed me. By the end of the run I was sprinting at 6:30 to get the average pace below 8:00 before finishing (success... 7:58/mi average).
• I did an 11-mile run at the Umpqua River during the large family campout. Running while camping is never fun since you are sleeping on the ground, but it felt really good and allowed me to enjoy the rest of the weekend guilt free. I love running that route in Roseburg when I am down there, so it felt nice to be able to do that again.
• One night at Portland Running Company I tested out my potential marathon race pace. I ran seven miles @ 8:45/mile, which would be a 3:49 marathon pace. It felt okay, not great though. It was also 91 degrees so that wasn't fair. I'm doing the Half Boring Half Marathon in a couple of weeks. I will run this my hardest and then extrapolate my marathon pace from there. All signs point to sub 3:50 being my "A" goal and sub 4:00 being my "B" goal.

Here's a blurry pic of me at Sunstone to cap the post.