It was a week: 16-22 August
Monday: biked 17.1 miles, lifted (chest)
Tuesday: AM – 3.3 mi (9.1 min/mi)
PM – 4.4 mi (11.2 min/mi)
Biked 17.1 mi
Wednesday: 3×2 mi at MP with 1/2 mi recovery (total 7.3 mi, avg. 8.4 min/mi); biked 17.1 mi; lifted (biceps)
Thursday: AM – 3.3 mi (9.4 min/mi)
PM – 3.3 mi (10.4 min/mi)
Biked 17.0 mi
Friday: Biked 31.3 mi
Saturday: half marathon – 13.1 mi in 1:46:02 (8.1 min/mi) – 19th in my division.
Sunday: AM – ~6 mi in 1:00:14
PM – 4 mi (11 min/mi)
Total running: 44.7 miles in 6:56:05 (9.3 min/mi, slightly faster than last week)
Total biking: 99.6 miles (This is the largest number of miles I have ever biked in a week. Yikes.)
My goals for the half marathon were a) do it in the Vibrams, and b) try to do it at marathon pace or better, to see if doing my marathon at that pace is tenable. MP is 8:25, so I was well within the “or better” part – 8.1 is about 8:05. It is clear that I’ll have to pay careful attention to pacing myself so I don’t go out too fast. I used to run very consistent splits, but as I’ve gotten faster that has faded somewhat. For example, my splits on Saturday ranged from 7:54 to 9:00 (at least!). So I will have to watch myself. My feet and calves are sore from running in the VFFs, but though I was worried toward the end that my feet were bleeding or something, I only had one major blister, which is pretty good.
I’ll try to post the before/after pictures from the half tomorrow; they’re quite droll.