…and I didn’t even have to use my AK. (only funny if you’re an Ice Cube fan)
Anywho. My taper schedule called for a 5-6 mile marathon pace run last night, and since I actually left work on time, I got to run to Eden Park! Hooray for a change of scenery. I have to run through Walnut Hills (sketchy) to get to the park, so this is a route I normally skip when it’s dark out. Too bad because there’s an awesome overlook of the city/Ohio River in mile 2.5.
I decided to live on the edge and not take my splits every mile. Really I just wanted to see how close I could get to marathon pace by instinct alone. Not that close as it turns out. Once I got to the top of the first hill and was feeling good, I decided to push it a little. There have been a bunch of shorter runs this summer where I decided to “push it”, only to come home and find that I averaged like a 9:30 or something. But last night I averaged 8:41/mile! I was so excited because I felt great through the whole run. I know 5.5 miles is a drop in the bucket for next weekend’s race, but it has been a LONG time since I felt so energized during and after a run.
To that end, I don’t know if it’s the taper, the deep tissue massage I had last weekend, or my crazy daily stretching routine, but my IT bands are finally starting to feel better. Hopefully I didn’t jinx myself by writing that. And hopefully it's ok that I ran 30 seconds per mile faster than marathon pace. I suppose there's probably a reason our coach wanted us to do a MP run versus a "go out and see what happens" run. Doh.
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