13 Miles In Ghent

Well I've been away for awhile from blogging, busy with the move to Norfolk and getting into the rythmn of things.

Its crunch time now for the Chicago Marathon and today called for a long run, managed to put in 13, 2 shy of what I ideally wanted but it will do. For todays run, I ran around Ghent and pretty much just went up and down side streets and in circles. Its pretty fun with only downside being the up and down sidewalk ramps, too much stress on knees from changing elevations if you will.

The overall status at this point is very promising being the ankle is fine, the lower body is fine, and upper body with exception of shoulders being okay. My mentallity on long runs is a bit bothersome with things going through my mind but something that I can manage or will have to. I keep telling myself to just go along with it. At the present time another concern is my time, or pace being too fast.

When I started running last year I started running on a treadmill and I never imagined that whatever pace I programmed my body to would be what would actually happen on pavement. My pace on the treadmill was 8 and 1/2 minute miles which equates to 7 miles per hour. This is the pace that I am running on pavement and in my opinion it is too fast. There are miles that I am putting in at upper 7's lower 8's. I would love to be running a constant 9:30 pace that would put me right at 4 hours and hopefully prevent me from spending all of my energy too soon. Maybe it can be something to work on in the coming weeks.

This week we will continue my unorthodox plan of 7 miles a day and then my long run on Sunday. Till tomorrow.