Saturday, March 21, 2009

A hard Saturday run, but I'm okay with that

Today I did 22 miles in 4:00:47, and it was hard. Really hard. Don't get me wrong, I ran the whole way, but I didn't finish as strong as I kind of wish I had. But I'm okay with that. Here's why...
That's the elevation profile from today's run. Note the steady 3% uphill grade near the beginning, and the intermittent 3% grades at the very end. And I still managed to hold a 10:57 pace (more or less) for the whole thing. (That doesn't count the pit stop at the grocery store at mile 15.5 to pick up more PowerAde.)

In contrast, here is the elevation profile for the marathon for which I am training, and in which I WILL finish in less than 5 hours.
Note the lack of any uphill grade greater than 2%, and that's just one little climb near the halfway point. Also, the uphills in miles 5 through 13 look scary, until you realize there's not a bit of them over 1%. I think I'm going to be ready.

4 weeks to go. I can do this.

1 comment:

Ingrid said...

You can TOTALLY do this!