13.1... Halfway!

Warning! Long, boring post.

First, before the boring stuff, Duck and Run 5k results are here and here.

This week's long run was scheduled to be a 13 miler. I just set my iPod to half marathon because it was a pre-set distance. I made it, at a slower than planned pace. My knee started hurting on about the second step and hurt the entire run. It's time to just man up and run. From here on out, almost every long run will be my longest distance ever run, except for the recovery weeks.

Here are the splits.

1. 8:40
2. 7:57
3. 7:57
4. 7:57
5. 7:51
6. 8:04
7. 8:46 (This was actually a 1.1 mile split, so 7:57, 0:49, maybe?)
8. 8:23 (aid station stop, thanks for the Gatorade, Matt!)
9. 7:59
10. 8:03
11. 7:38
12. 8:05 (worst hill on the run, and a fence to go through)
13. 7:56

That was 1:45:22 total for an average of about 8:00 per mile. I sincerely hope for a better time at the HTC Half Marathon.

I was really pleased with the consistency of the splits, but disappointed in the pace. I intended for the first mile to be slow. I really wanted mile 11 to be closer to 7:20 and mile 12 to be MUCH closer to 7:20. I forgot about that hill and fence in mile 12. I should have kicked in mile 10 and 11. I still had some energy at the end of the run, and felt like I could have gone further. I had gotten used to ignoring the knee pain! That's probably because of the slower than planned pace. It did cross my mind that it was only halfway.

Here's something similar to today's route. Not exactly, but I did run all of that route and then some.
http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/us/al/athens/944178296964