TITLE: Just the Facts, Ma'am AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford DATE: September 04, 2006 5:50 PM DESC: ----- BODY: Okay, so much for the maudlin confession. How did that 22-miler go? For the first time in a very long time, when I woke up yesterday morning, I did not want to run. It was exceedingly cloudy, and the evidence of hard overnight rain lay all over the ground. And I was feeling tired. But... I finally urged myself out of bed. It was cool, which is great for a long run. The run went well, much better than I could have anticipated. I ran negative splits, even though I hit my first 10K lap faster than planned. For the full run, I averaged 8:30/mile, down from the 9:00+ miles I was running early in this training season. 8:30 is at the lower bound of the "30-60 seconds slower than goal pace" range that the creator of my training plan recommends for long runs late in the season. Being this fast, I will happily run a slower 20-miler next Sunday; my body will need to recover. I was especially pleased with miles 19 and 20: 8:04 and 8:02 respectively... right at marathon goal pace! And this came at the end of a 60-mile week. Of course, then I was sore. It felt good, though, and I was able to go for a short walk with my family in the evening. I had an easy 3 miles planned for this morning but took it off so that I could take an easy bike ride with my family later in the morning. The bike ride served the same purpose as the run -- to loosen my legs up for the coming week -- but was so much more fun than the run would have been. -----