Week 7 Day 7

Today I broke my own running distance record. I ran 13.23 miles in total in 1:42:00.

It was an early morning 8:30am. I just got up and had a banana and a couple mouth of water. The sun was out but there was light fluffy snow. The temperature was 2C. After learning the lesson from my frozen dick last time, I put a comfort underwear to avoid my dick frozen again.

I put on my Samsung Android phone with Runkeeper on. The Runkeeper reported my pace was 7:20 on the first half mile. Wow, that was too fast for the first ever half marathon run. So I slowed down a bit. After the first mile, it was 7:30. I was still too fast although I was comfortable enough. So I slowed down again. The second mile was 8.09/mi. My plan was to run the whole distance with an average 8:00/mi pace, as I had never run such a distance and I didn't know if I was capable to run with my normal pace 7 minutes and something.

Due to the inaccurate Runkeeper mapping last time, I measured my distance on Google Map before the run, so I knew where I should return. Surprisingly this time Runkeeper was very accurate as there was no u-turn bend on the route.

After the half way, I felt good and comfortable but I could felt my legs a bit tight. The half way average pace was 7:48/mi. I think I read Pfitz book discussing about the marathon pace in the second half of a long run, but I couldn't remember if it was in my today's plan. Anyhow, I felt good enough, so I increased my pace but keep comfortable enough to finish the rest. Mile 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, the pace was about 7:16-7:23.

After mile 12, I still felt good but I planned to use the rest to cool down, so I slowed down the pace and did some short sprint drill to stretch my legs. Mile 13's pace was 8:18.

It was a great run. I never feel so good after a Sunday run, although I could definitely feel my quads sore.

One more note is that for the first time I took a drink with me. I made my own energy drink. Reading some articles, I know through sweat a runner loses Sodium and Potassium which are the main ingredients of a sport drink. Potassium can come from lemon juice. So I added little sugar, salt and lemon juice into water and mix. That was my energy drink. Every 3 miles, I took a mouth of the drink since through the night I was probably a bit dehydrated and I couldn't drink too much before the run.