8 Mile Road

Well, I now have the first two "long runs" of half marathon training under my belt (7 and 8 miles).  My schedule has been pretty crazy so I have had to juggle the days around and everything hasn't been going exactly as planned, but I have still been getting *most* of my runs in during the week.  7 miles felt great, but my 8 miles this past weekend felt tough.  I think it has a lot to do with the 83% humidity on Saturday, but my pace was slower than normal for that run (over 12 minutes/mile for everything after the first two miles and the last mile where I couldn't wait to be done).
 

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Max HR
1	11:30.0	1	11:30	129	151
2	11:40.6	1	11:41	142	153
3	12:38.1	1	12:38	148	153
4	12:33.9	1	12:34	149	158
5	12:25.5	1	12:26	156	162
6	12:12.9	1	12:13	159	164
7	12:41.7	1	12:42	162	170
8	11:40.4	1	11:42	164	173
Summary	37:23.1	8	12:11	151	173

For the 9 miler coming up this weekend, I am going to pay extra attention to my nutrition and water intake the days leading up to the run, and I am going to rest my legs or do an easy run the day before (instead of doing tough intervals the day before my long run like I did this past weekend).  I have also found that having some fuel (this is what I have been using) right before any run over 5 miles really helps get me finish strong.  The past few weekends I have had a lot going on so it has been hard to find time to fit in my long run, but this weekend coming up I don't have any plans so I am going to really make sure the conditions are ideal to run 9 miles!  As long as the weather cooperates!

In other news, this girl turns 3 tomorrow: