My best run ever!!

Last Saturday I went for a 16 mile run, and had to be picked up, utterly failed due to heat exhaustion. It was pretty mentally debilitating as my marathon is only 8 weeks away at this point.

This week I went out and tried the same route with renewed energy, but still cautious.

It was about 13 degrees cooler and had some light rain falling. I went out slower than last week trying to bank miles at a slower pace in order to feel a bit better mid-run and towards the end.

The first 3 miles ended up being, 10:17, 10:30, and and 10:13. However once mile 4 happened my pace picked up a bit un-intentionally. Miles 4-9 were just about all under 10 minutes a miles. 9:46, 9:53, 9:46, 10:12, 9:56, 9:54.

I really didn't realize this was happening as ALL of the hills I had problems with the first time were no problem today. In fact, I didn't even walk until I made myself stop for some water at mile 11. That's the longest I've run without walking ever.

That probably ended up being my biggest mistake. I had thought that by grabbing water, and walking for a minute that I would be able to recover some to make the last 5 miles go better. They didn't really go better, but they didn't go any worse either until the very end.

I did get caught at around mile 12.5 where one of the roads took a turn up a steep hill and I ended up walking most of it.

The problem came in when I was walking up the hill a bit that my calves started to seize up a bit. So the next few miles were between 10:53 and 11:27. I was able to pick it up after that to get my pace back down to 10:30 where my legs started to feel really sore the last mile back up to 11:12.

Either way, I'm incredibly happy with this run. It's obvious that a 4:30 marathon might be out of reach for me right now, but who knows.

Here are the mile splits:

10:17
10:30
10:13
09:46
09:53
09:46
10:12
09:56
09:54
10:43
10:22
10:53
11:32
11:27
10:29
11:12
02:06 <--Last .21 miles


I'm pretty happy. While I was sore when I was done, I felt better than I did on my 15 mile run. It wasn't my fastest by any means, and it wasn't meant to be. But I ran longer than ever without a walk break, and I ran my furthest mileage yet!

Here's the link to my run! I should add that I didn't stop the timer at lights or street crossings, so my avg pace may have well been faster.
http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/222065054/11527425