Saturday morning I met Chuck for a very easy 5. Then I headed down to Mt SAC for a Cross Country Coaches Clinic. It was excellent!
Sunday I met Chuck and Lance at 5 am for a long run. The three of us started off in the dark and did our first five mile out and back in 42:36 with splits of 8:57, 8:33, 8:28, 8:11, and 8:27. At 5:45 Lauren, Dawn and Karl joined us for our second out and back. This one was a bit quicker: 8:20, 8:11, 8:19, 8:13, + 8:11 = 41:13. On the final out and back our group broke up a bit. Lance developed a hot spot and turned back after 11 miles. Chuck and Dawn dropped off the pace. Well, either that or Lauren, Karl and I sped up – maybe it was a bit of both. The final five was quite a bit quicker: 8:11, 8:06, 8:06, 7:45, + 7:45 = 39:58. All in all it was a nice long run.
Once again, I saw my normal long run build up pattern. The first time I add miles to my long run the added miles are usually not so good. Last week’s final five were not so comfortable. When I run that same distance the next week, those same miles become MUCH easier. In today’s case those miles were the fastest of the day.