Day 44: Long Run with Nike Run Club in Santa Monica
12 miles, 1:20.23 - 6:42 pace (7:05, 6:35, 6:31, 6:28, 6:41, 6:37, 6:38, 6:40, 6:43, 7:09, 6:49, 6:28)
A cloudy, drizzly morning set the perfect mood for a nice, flat, fast long run along the Santa Monica Boardwalk. With my training partner Elliot taking off to run 6:10 pace for 10 miles with a couple of the top monsters from the club (then continue on alone for 5 more!), I stayed back with my other training partner Candela and tried to keep our pace under control.
There's something about running on a cool Saturday morning at a fresh, new location with a lot of cool things to look at that just makes a run fly by and the pace get really fast without noticing it. By the second mile, I was shocked to see we were already in the 6:30s, and we did our best to steady our pace. What seemed like a few blinks later, we were already turning around and heading back. If not for the persistent stiffness in my lower back, it would have been the perfect run.
Candela, training only for the 5K distance, called it a day at 9 miles, while I - the marathoner - put in an extra 3. It was 2 miles more than last week's long run and done at a pace 2 seconds faster per mile. Since it was on a completely different course, it's hard to fairly compare the two efforts. Overall, though, I'll chalk it up as a successful run.
An important tip to remember, on these days made for the perfect run, even though you might feel great, you still want to control your pace as to not exceed your goal pace. Just because you feel great at the time, you need to consider how overdoing it will make you feel during your next couple of runs.
Final note - You will see I didn't do a warm up mile like I usually do for long runs and that my first mile split (7:05) was far faster than my usual opening mile. The reason for this is because the club did some dynamic stretching before we started which served as my warm up.
