Week 5, Session Two: 10 mile general aerobic run
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Orlando, Florida
76 degrees Farenheit (24.4C), 97% humidity, rainy
39 days to Red Top Roaster race
Today's run was 10 miles (16 km) at an average pace of 7:50 per mile (4:52 per km). I am traveling with my son in Florida, so I was exploring a new loop. I was also breaking in my new ASICS Novablast Tokyos:
I made the 10 mile loop using Strava. I'm staying in a touristy part of Orlando, so there were plenty of decent sidewalks, but also a fair amount of waiting at major traffic intersections. I did locate a nice quiet stretch for an interval workout tomorrow. I also couldn't resist taking a pic with this Ferris wheel:
Although I am currently training for the 8.85 mile trail race in July, my long term goal is to run a sub 3 hour marathon this year. I am registered for the Kiawah Island marathon in December 2021 and I will begin a marathon specific training block after the trail race. I only started training seriously in March 2020 when a couple of factors steered me in that direction. First, I was intrigued by Eliud Kipchoge's sub 2 hour marathon run. Second, the world was on lock due to the pandemic and I was itching to get out of the house to do something, anything. Finally, I was experiencing some type of midlife crisis that compelled me to take on some new type of challenge. Running seemed like a logical way to get out of the house for a while, stay fit, and challenge myself to learn more about a sport that I had largely ignored my entire life. I started with a few short runs and gradually built up to about 30 miles (48 km) then 50 miles (80 km) per week. The next natural step seemed to be training for a marathon, so I picked up Pete Pfitzinger's book Advanced Marathoning and started to dig into the details of how to train properly. Things went pretty smoothly, but I was not accounting for the fact that there would be no marathons to run in person any time soon. After several heartbreaks, cancellations, and reschedulings, I ended up running the Charleston Marathon virtually in January 2021. I set up my own 2 mile loop so I could have an aid station clocked a time of 3:13:40, slightly faster than my goal of 3:15:00. I followed that with a time of 1:28:43 at the Sweetgrass half marathon in May 2021. I feel like things are on track, I just need to keep dialed in with my nutrition and training in order to reach my goal in December.