Nice n Long

I rose this morning at 0600 for my last run of the week - The Long Run. I hadn't bought a new pair of runners since before the Cork Marathon in June and while I was feeling no ill effects, there must be well in excess of 600 miles on my current pair (closer to 1,000 i'd say - perhaps this built-in obsolescence is a cod after all). So I headed into town yesterday evening and bought myself a brand new pair of Asics Nimbus and two power bar gels. I got to Pairc Ui Caoimhe about 12 minutes before the scheduled 0645 Eagle AC meeting time so that I could do a quick out and back (1.8 miles in all) to test the shoes - no problems so drive on. There was 8 of us in all heading out the old passage railway line to passage, Monkstown and Rafeen before turning right up the only hill of the run (1.5 miles of it). The pace over the first 12 miles (including my solo 1.8 miles) to the top of the hill averaged at 08:02, which was the target pace for the run. However coming down the other side to the Rochestown Inn the pace went sub 8 minutes and stayed that way until the end. We took the long way back to the cars via the Estuary loop taking in Blackrock Castle and the Marina giving me 17.4 miles. Some bailed out here and some went on to do a few laps of the Centre Park Road/Monahan's Road loop (about 1.58 mile loop). I ran with John Desmond completing 4 loops which gave me 24.52 miles in all (22.72 for John - most went for 20 miles). Total time = 03:09:04 (07:43 pace @ 137 HR 155 HR at end) - last 12.52 mile @ 07:24 pace. Those power bar gels certainly seemed to have helped with the fuelling. John wanted to know what the marathon time would have been if we had maintained our finishing pace of 07:20 for another 1.7 miles. I figure it would have been 03:21:31, not bad for a training run. Rest day tomorrow. I certainly believe that rest and recovery (sleep) play a much bigger role in my training that I previously thought. In previous training cycles I would have gone out for a 10 to 13 mile recovery run the day after a long run just to get the weekly mileage up - not this time. Sat 20th Sept 24.52 Miles in 03:09:04 (07:43 Pace @ 137 HR) Marathon Week 12/16 - 65.6 Miles.