20-Mile Sunday

Today I ran my first 20 miler since completing the Napa Valley Marathon on March 6. I wanted to get in at least one 20-miler before starting race specific training in June. Since I ran so few miles last week, today seemed like a good time to go for it. The run wasn't too bad. I enjoy racing marathons but do not really enjoy the long runs. I know many marathoners enjoy getting out for a relaxing 20 miler, but for me it's a necessary evil. Anyway, I felt pretty good up until the 17.5 mile point, and then I started to get a bit tired. Even so, I maintained a sub-8:00 pace to the end. My average pace for the entire run was 7:52. I'm hoping to keep the easy runs and long runs faster than 8:00 minute miles during this cycle. For the recovery runs, I'm going to try to not worry about pace and will probably run them without a watch.

This was a good television weekend for fans of track and field. On Saturday, I watched two hours each of the Big 12 championships and the Pac 10 championships. On Sunday, I watched a replay of an hour of races from the Penn Relays and two hours of another track meet that I can't remember the name of. Is it any wonder I don't get anything done around the house. In my defense, it was a rainy weekend.