Felt Strong

I actually felt like an athlete for the first time since last summer, today.  I had the strongest bike ride since then although it still wasn't super fast but I felt 10x better than I did on Monday.  I have Elena this weekend so I decided to test a little bit longer brick run to try and keep my mileage up.  Plus it was 80 today and if I tried to run early tomorrow morning, it was predicted to be 50 and rainy.

I got off the bike and downed some extra gulps of water and an espresso Hammer Gel.  Coming off the bike, the legs always feel weird so I was just trying to get them under me.  The wind was whipping quite good but for most of the first mile it was a tail wind.  I was just trying to float along.

I had packed an extra gel in case and was planning my standard out-n-back course.  Depending on how I felt, I could turn around at mile 2, 2.5, 3.1 or 4.1.  The first mile has about half of mile of uphill so it's always a slow go but I came through the marker at 7:10.  This was easily my fastest first mile in forever.  I was thanking the tailwind but knew I'd pay on the way back.  The 2nd mile is a gradual downhill for most of it and then the course basically flattens out.  It's usually the fastest mile for all the runs on this route.  I hit it in 6:30 and was like "wow".  This is cool.  The legs were just feeling good and I was really wasn't pushing it at all.

I decided for better or worse I'd go all the way out to my 4.1 turnaround point and put down the 8 miler.  I was able to keep 6:40ish pace for a few miles until I started to feel a little bonky.  I quickly down the gel I had brought and just tried my best for the last couple of miles to keep the form and pace.  Of course the last mile was into a massive headwind and uphill.  It was pretty painful but I figure I could use the mental toughness for those last 10k of the marathon.

Overall it was a 6:45 average pace and it didn't feel hard.  I think the nice warm weather plus about of month of some consistency in workouts is really paying off.  I'm still fat as the inside of my knees ended up getting chaffed a little from my fat legs rubbing together but it's slowly coming along.