Two hours and forty minutes. That’s a long time to run. It gets monotonous. It gets strenuous. It gets boring. Today was the first of the long runs for my Marathon/Ironman training. For the next few Wednesdays, I’ll run increasingly longer before tapering the week before the Marathon. Today, I ran for just short of 19 miles around my office.
I chose a loop of about 7 miles to stop about once every hour to load up on fuel. I felt pretty good during the first two loops, but started to run out of steam during the latter part of the 3rd loop. I have to readjust my nutrition tactics just a bit by taking in calories and electrolytes more often at slightly higher dosages.
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| Well managed heart rate today |
The best part about today’s run was that I managed my heart-rate in the low level-2 range and still averaged a speed of just above 8:30 per mile. If I can go just a bit faster and sustain it for the full 26.1 miles, I have a small chance of qualifying for Boston. Before today’s run, I put my chances at 5%, but after today’s run, I put my chances at 10%; still not good, but better than last week!!