A Great Sunday

This morning I ran my scheduled workout - 15 miles, including eight miles at half marathon race pace (6:29). I ran the eight pace miles after a two-mile warmup. I was able to keep at or below 6:29 on all but one mile, which was run into a decent wind. Still that mile was at 6:32, so I was close. Overall, I finished the eight faster miles close to 30 seconds below my goal pace. The last five miles were an easy run home. I'm very pleased with this workout. The effort was fairly consistent. I ran a bit faster than I was wanted on about half of the faster miles, but those miles were mostly run into the wind, so I was pretty close effort-wise.

After finishing my run, I had to shower and eat pretty quickly because the family spent the afternoon and evening at Six Flags Marine World. My legs and feet got pretty sore from walking so much after a hard workout, but I had a great time. Marine World has a bit of everything, roller coasters, sea mammals (walruses, dolphins, sea lions, a killer whale), penguins, and land animals (camels, elephants, lions and a few others). My wife and I rode a few rides, but mostly we walked around looking at the animals and watching the shows. My daughter and her boyfriend spent almost the entire time on roller coasters. To make the day even better, I got the tickets from a guy at work for free!

Back to running. The completion of today's run marked the beginning of my taper. I'm going to try to stick to my schedule over these last couple of weeks. My bigger challenge will be to reduce my caloric intake to match my reduced mileage.