12 Miles like BAM!

That's right, boys and girls, I officially logged my longest run since 2009 on Saturday. And I lived to tell about it (with only a bit of chaffing...).

So here's how it went down.

W had an 8miler on the schedule so he decided to head out with me for the first 4m of my run. It was as perfect of running weather as you can ask for in February. Mid-30's, sunny, dry pavement. In February! Ah-mazing. We headed out to the Lake loop and headed away from downtown (east maybe?). I like to run my lake loop that direction to get the majority of the "hills" out of the way early on.

I love that my ponytail is long enough to swish when I run. :)

The first 4m we ran at a pace W was comfortable with and new he could maintain for his 8m. That combined with the previously mentioned "hills" kept the pace hovering between 11:30-12:00. At 4.01m W immediately turned around, mainly to avoid the next big hill, and headed off to finish his run. That left me with 8m and 2/3 of the lake to run around yet on my own...it also meant I could pick up the pace a bit. Yeehaw!

The next few miles went from the 11:30-12:oo min/mile pace to low tens, which is a touch faster than I should have been running but felt good. The first 6m were run in 1:10:24, roughly an 11:44 pace.

Around mile 7.5 I talk a brief walk break, the only walk break I took I am pleased to say, to eat some Sport Beans (the only food I had in the house) and get a few good swigs of water. At this point I was along John Nolen nearing Monona Terrace and it was chilly. The breeze off of the sort of frozen lake was enough to make me shiver and wish I had another layer on. From there I followed the bike path for a bit (vs Jennifer St). I wasn't even really thinking when I followed the path vs the lake loop, but it was a nice reprieve from the lake breeze. I followed the path until "ice ream" aka Schoepps, where I headed back into neighbor....where I forgot there were a few more hills between me and home.

Around mile 9 or 10 I started to get a little achy and sore. I knew I had a few more miles in me but was ready to be done. I looked at my watch with just under 2m to go and was right around 1:55:xx. It was at that point that I desperately wanted to finish my run in under 1:15:00. I ran and calculated and new it would be a stretch. It would require my last 2 miles of the day to be my fastest. Welllllll, I didn't make it. I came close, but didn't have quite enough gas in the tank for 2 sub-10 miles.

All in all, the goal pace for the run was 60-90secs slower than my 1/2m goal pace which would put it in the 11:15-11:45min/mile. The entire 12m run came in at 2:15:56 with an 11:19 avg pace. The first half was 1:10:24 (11:44 avg pace) with a negative split for the second half for 1:05:32 (10:55 avg pace). I officially have 27 days to add 1.1m to the distance and shave 57sec off the total time...seeing as Saturday felt good I think I can do it!!!