Longest Run/Walk of the Season

Yesterday I completed my longest distance of this training season, 9.09 miles! I'm still tired this morning, so it's a rest day from exercise. Still, it felt good to finish the distance yesterday morning.


George and I Before the Run
(Thanks to George for the kiss, and thanks to Ashby for taking the shot!)


I started early in the parking lot where the Raleigh Galloway group was starting, since I wanted to be in the annual big group picture at 6:30ish. I tried 15-sec/45-sec run/walk intervals as Jeff Galloway suggested for my recent Magic Mile, but it drove me a little nuts, so I went back to my regular 30/30 interval again. Maybe I'll try it again, or fiddle with it and try 20/40 later. (I wish I'd done that at the end of yesterday's mileage, now that I think about it!)

After the group picture, Ashby was kind enough to take the picture above of George and me! (Thanks, Ashby!) Then I headed off to another part of the American Tobacco Trail to finish my run/walk. I felt pretty strong for much of the run on the other part of the ATT, but started to fade toward the end. I ended up walking it in, but wish now that I'd just shortened the running interval. But I finished, and I'm relieved about that.

9:09 miles in 3:14:32, 21:24 avg pace

According the Magic Mile prediction calculator, I should be training at a 23:48 pace, so I'm pretty comfortably ahead of the game there. My predicted half marathon race pace is 21:02, which I still have several weeks to improve on. (And I certainly wasn't doing a race effort yesterday!) Maybe I'll try another Magic Mile this week.