Wednesday 3/3/10 - 12 miles including 8 mile tempo

This was the best workout that I've had in a long time and I didn't have this strong a workout in the month leading up to the Houston marathon. The weather was great - upper 50's or low 60's and sunny out. I headed out at lunch and did a 2.5 mile warmup in 18 minutes. My goal was to do 8 miles at ~6:00 avg pace, but I would have settled for 8 miles at 6:15 (sub-marathon pace) if my hamstring wasn't feeling good. I felt pretty good starting out and hit the first mile in 6:08. I wasn't pushing it too hard and i planned to start a little slower and try to pick up the pace to average 6:00. I hit the 2nd mile in 6:03 and the 3rd in 6:01. I finally got under 6:00 pace on the 4th mile and hit 5:58. My 5th was 5:56 and my 6th was 5:58. I took a quick 20 second water break right after I finished the 6th mile and then got right back up to speed for the last two miles. My last two splits were 5:54 and 5:50. I felt pretty strong and could have kept going at that pace longer. I could feel my hamstring, but it never really hurt or felt like I needed to stop the run. After the workout I did a 1.5 mile cooldown in about 8:00 minutes for a total of 12 miles in 1:16 and I averaged 5:59 for the 8 miles.

Tomorrow will be an easy day and I'm thinking of doing my long run on Friday afternoon up in Conroe. Since I work in the Woodlands I'm already 2/3 of the way there so I might take a couple hours off on Friday afternoon and go do an easy 18 in Conroe. That will give me another long run in the hills and let me sleep in on Saturday morning.