The Last Long Run (before the marathon...)

Today, we met for the Last Long(ish) Run before next Sunday's AT&T Marathon. We gathered up at 6:30am for 7-10 miles, incorporating all of the first 7 miles of the course, maybe even the first 8 miles. Most of my pace pals were in attendance, and we ended up with Frank as a Guest Runner, too. It was a fairly spirited run, and we had some good fun today. Without traffic controls, it was a little spooky running down Lamar, but after that, it wasn't too bad. There were a lot of construction vehicles and such along the route. Of course, that won't be the case next Sunday.

We got water/Powerade from Kenny's stop at Austin Tricyclist, and then made our second stop at the Rock under Mopac. From there, it was a modest fast finish back to Auditorium Shores. If it sounds like it was sort of a ho-hum run, you might be right. I think that a combination of nerves about next weekend's big race had a lot to do with it. We were anxious, and were extra careful about stepping up and down off of curbs and such. As Alex says, it's time to put ourselves in bubble wrap for the next week, to prevent damage before the race even starts.

The pace was quicker than usual today, as might be expected on this nice, cool morning (40 degrees, more or less), and we ended up with 9.12 miles at 8:49/mile running pace. With our two brief water stops included, the pace drifted up to 9:07/mile. My own fast finish for the last 2.2 miles was just under 8:00/mile pace. Sue, Jennifer and I cruised in at that pace, and for me, at least, it didn't feel all that much faster than we'd been going. I'll take that as a good sign.

6 striders later, we were done with the running portion of the day. I scored 9.4 miles for the day with the strides. A full stretching session later, in the chilly post-run time slot, and we were done. I'd say that everyone is ready for the marathon to get here already. All this training, and now we have to endure Taper Madness for another week!