15 mile marathon training run at 7:22 pace

15 miles at Wetlands Park in the AM at 7:22 pace. Beautiful cool fall morning. I felt good the whole way, with the pace dropping down to 7:05 at mile 8. Portland Marathon in 18 days - I wish this had been a 20 mile run instead of just 15, I'd feel more confident going into that race, with more longer distance training. But it was a hot hot summer and I was working full time and breaking up with my girlfriend and amidst all that I couldn't quite figure out how to make the proper training schedule happen. Anyway, good run today.

Garmin Connect

I used a 10 ounce amphipod handheld water bottle which fits nicely into the hand and seems to be enough water to get the job done. No music, no ipod - I've taken a break lately from the music, although there's no question I run about 10% faster with it - which is a big difference over a long race. I might use the ipod at Portland, haven't decided yet. Sometimes it's nice just to run with the sounds of the park and a clear head and plenty of time to think.

Checked out for a while

I took a break for a while - still running, just had a lot going on in real life and needed to step away from the blogging. I ran the red rock relay this past weekend and had a good experience - lots of fast mefium distance running there. The high point for me was the 6.5 mile leg that was pretty much all downhill in a steep mountain canyon, allowing me to stride out and hit a speed that I'm rarely able to maintain out in the flat lands. My last 3 mile splits were 5:56, 5:42 and 5:29 as I accelerated down the mtn with the righteous fury of a locomotive without brakes - it felt like I was a wheelbarrow, all up on my forefoot and the weight leaning forward, down, faster and faster - just as much effort required to keep pushing as to slow down. The first mile had been slightly uphill to the peak, and there were remnants of a hurricane from Baja blowing through so I was hit with about ten minutes of ice cold hail at the start - the elevation was 8000 feet, this race is near the Brian Head ski resort near Zion - but as I hit the vast magnificent downhill the weather relented and I began to feel my cheeks ears and arms again. My breath returned after the initial shock of running in such thin mountain air and my breathing became normal after mile 3. I passed five other teams, five "kills". I had always wanted to run a long mountain downhill like this and it really was all I had hoped for, fast and fun. I felt like king of the mountain for a brief moment. My average pace according to the Garmin was 6:10 and the time for the first 6.2 miles was 38:15 giving me a new 10k pr. Our team ran well and I think we finished 5th out of 62. It was a good time.