12 Miles and a Tempo

This past weekend I planned to run my long run on Saturday and do an easy recovery run on Sunday.  Saturday morning I just wasn't feeling it.  It was raining and I felt lazy.  I wanted to lay around and play with Carter so that's exactly what I did.  I went for an easy run later in the day.  During my run I thought about what I'd do for my long run and started getting pumped up and excited to run hard the next day.

Enjoying the rain.

My plan going into Sunday's long run was to log 12 miles.  I also wanted to get an 8 mile tempo run at 8:00 pace in.  I decided to run 3 easy miles as a warm-up, 8 miles at tempo pace, and then a mile cool down. 

When Carter went down for a nap I left for my run.  It was 75 degrees with a cool breeze.  I started off with my 3 easy miles and glanced down at my pace after a half-mile.  I was running right at 8:30 pace.  I had figured my easy miles would be closer to 9:00 pace.  My legs just wanted to take off and run fast.  Running 8:30 pace felt slow.  I couldn't believe how good I felt as I finished my first 3 miles in an average of 8:25 pace.

With 8:25 pace feeling so easy I knew I would either rock the run or lose steam part-way through.  Luckily it was the first, I totally rocked my run!  My next 5 miles ranged from 7:50-7:55 pace.  Around 6.5 miles in I passed a guy who turned, looked at me, and said "Man, you're fast".  It was nice to get a compliment and reminded me of one of the great aspects of running, the community.

As I headed into the last 4 miles I started to pick up the pace even more.  Mile 9 was 7:47, mile 10 was 7:43, and mile 11 was 7:35.  The last mile of my run was supposed to be a cool down, but I was feeling awesome and around half-way through the run I decided to run the last mile hard instead and log a 9 mile tempo.  I realized I was going to finish in an average of 8:00 pace or under for my entire 12 mile run and was tempted to go ahead and run all the way to 13.1 to see what I finish a half in, but decided that was silly since I'm running a half in a couple weeks.  Instead I decided to rock out the last mile and couldn't believe it when I finished mile 12 in 7:17.  Putting me at an average of 7:55 pace for 12 miles.  Runs like this are what I work for, what I train for, what it's all about.  It's looking like I'll definitely be able to reach my goal of a half-marathon at 8:00 pace!

I'm getting really excited to run a half.  I feel like I'm in really good shape.  A couple months ago my brother and I decided to run a half-marathon in October as a tune-up for our half in November.  I'm so glad we did.  The half-marathon we registered for is next weekend and I'm so ready to see where I'm at.

After such an awesome run I was feeling fired up and ready to conquer the world.  I called Ty to see what Carter was up to and he had just woken up 10 minutes earlier.  I couldn't wait to get home and play with our little man.

Such a perfect face to come home to.