14 + 4 + 2 = 20 miles

With Boston a little over 2 weeks away it was time for our last 20 miler. I had emailed everyone begging for a 6 AM start so I could finish in time to make it over to a TrySports Sponsored 5k at Mc Alpine to help out. Clayton, Jon H., Mike, Jonathan S., Megan and I were joining me for this run on the Mallard Creek Greenway.

What we had talked about was doing 14 miles at 7:30 and then a 4 mile light tempo which would be followed by a 2 mile cool down.

I noticed that even in the early miles we were clipping a long pretty fast – pushing a few sub sevens. Mike, Clayton, Jon, and I cooled our jets for later while Megan and Jonathon S. speed off into the sunrise. Keeping the pace in check for me was the right thing to do. While I could have gone with them, I don't want to look back after Boston and feel like I left my best effort on the Greenway.

After circulating most of the greenway, Mike and I started our 4 mile tempo from the Soccer fields. The first mile was 6:15. Definitely, it was faster than the 6:30 that I was expecting and each proceeding miles was just a little faster.

Mike finished off with a 5:57 last mile and I was close behind at 6 minutes.

We finished off with a nice little 2 mile cool down back to the parking.

My legs didn't feel great but they didn't feel all that bad. It is just the first week of my taper and during the next week lower mileage should help my legs show some signs of life.

Mike's definitely is good shape for this marathon and I think he has bought into the big picture training method. Now, my last task is to keeping him from going out too fast Boston and if I can do that, then most likely somewhere around 22 miles, I will watch him disappear into the crowd of runners ahead of me at Boston.

 

Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner