Week 6 -- Sept 11, 13 and 17th 2006

This was going to be the week i was planning on doing my longest run. On Monday, Sept 11th; i did a 6 mile run at about 10:30 pace that included some 400 meter speed reps towards the end ...

On Wednesday, Sept 13th; i did a 5.5 mile run at ~ 10:30 to 11 min/mile pace ... threw in some speed bursts towards the end.

On Sunday, Sept 17th; i did my longest run of 12 miles outside on the Sawyer trail starting at about 1:45 pm or so in the afternoon ... had rested well during the later part of the week in preparation for this ... My original plan was to go a steady 10 min/mile pace over the whole distance to finish up in 2 hours ... Gaurav and I started off together, Gaurav was planning on doing 9 miles ... We reached the 2 mile mark in just around 20 mins where we decided to split up ... since it was my benchmark run, i wanted to try and maintain the 10 min/mile pace as much as possible and went ahead trying to keep up with the pace ... I was finding it tough to maintain the pace consistently (knock knock, reality check ... maybe i should start off at a more comfortable 11 min/mile pace in the first two miles) so took a walk break around the 3.5 mile marker near the water stop ... I knew the looping hill would start after the 4.5 mile marker and decided to walk the quarter mile before 5 mile marker ... it was more or less flat till about 5.4 and then the hill all the way to the end at the 6 miler marker ... it had taken me 66 minutes for the 6 miles ... I took my energy gel near the water fountain on the north end of the sawyer trail and zoomed down the first mile on the roundtrip back in 7 mins (nah i don't do 7 min/miles ... it was just the steep downhill all the way helping me out there) ...

Overall I ended up taking 2:09:59 :-) ... Gaurav finished up the 9 miles earlier (turned back from the 4.5 mile marker) and was stretching and waiting at the finish line ...

I was happy to have just beaten 2:10:00 but way off the 2 hour mark ... I am going to try and aim for a 2:10 time at the half marathon (extrapolating the 12 mile timing, factoring in the lack of direct sun in the early morning start and the flat SJ half marathon course + a bit extra push in the latter half of the race) ...

My heel felt alright in the race though it hurt bit afterwards ... i took some NSAITS tablets and iced it couple of times