Goal: 80-90 mins. on trail
9.4 miles in 95 mins.
Now that I have only three more nights to sleep before I run along Salem Lakeshore, I wanted to spend my morning run getting lost in time on trails without facing the boredom I've recently encountered on my longer mileage around McAlpine. I headed up to Reedy Creek Park to get away and experience much quieter, much more technical trails before getting in an afternoon run with Christi at McAlpine. In keeping up with my ultra-training, I knew it was important to do the trails and not worry about trying to do my 5K-15K pace like I normally would, but instead, actually take it easy and focus on what my goal ultra pace felt like. Just as I had suspected, once I let myself get settled, 10:00 pace does not seem all that out of the ordinary for this period of training. I did get forced to a really slow crawl up some of the steeper hills that were covered with wet leaves, but I made up for it with a couple of -7:30 miles. I even got in a little more practice eating on the run, and my vanilla crisp Power Bar went down well. It was nice to get a feel for transitioning from my ultra pace to marathon pace, so that it will be easier to transition on Saturday. I finished up the last mile progressing faster and faster to a nice kick. After getting back to the car and stretching, I read texts from Christi, dictating that she had to take her lunch break early so I didn't have time to recover.
Immediately, I drove down to McAlpine to try to catch a couple miles with Christi anyway. Crossing the greenway at Margaret Wallace, I saw Jordan and Meagan and thought there might be a decent group out there today. I hopped out of the car and took off around the lake in search of Christi, but really saw no one. I pulled one somewhat "tight" mile around the hill and back loop, and headed back to the car. I did catch a little bit of convo with Meagan and Jordan, and it's good to know that both of these local heroes are getting stronger again after there recent injuries/strains of sorts.
Maybe I could say I got two different runs in today. Either way, I feel great about it, with the 50K right around the corner.
