Recovery 5-miler

I had my roommate snap this before I headed out to run tonight. Extremely dorky, I know. What else would you expect?

I’m pretty much showing off every crazy-runner accessory I own: compression sleeves, fuel belt, blinky light attached to the belt, Garmin, headlamp. My RoadID is on, but you can’t see it. If my foam roller was hanging out in the background, the insanity would be complete!

I set out to do a recovery 5-miler since I ran the hell out of 10 miles last night. (May I casually direct you to observe the last four mile splits from that run? I call that blind adrenaline.)

Anyway, I accidentally hit the “lap” button in the middle of my second mile tonight, which jacked up my splits, so here they are — roughly, and without a pretty chart:

Mile 1 — 9:01
Mile 2 — 9:30
Mile 3 — 9:23
Mile 4 — 9:23
Mile 5 — 9:26

46:48 — 9:21 average pace

I started out fast because I was pretty cold — just felt like wearing shorts in November, you know? — and needed to warm up, and for the rest of the run I worked to pull back. I found it tough to slow down on a short run like this, but I came up behind a slower runner and instead of passing him, I hung out a ways behind him and matched his pace. Boom.

For strength, I then did this core workout from Runner’s World (except for the “metronome” move, which my IT bands didn’t appreciate). I’m all for core-building exercises that aren’t crunches!!

Now I have two rest days before I run 20 miles on Sunday. It’ll cap off a 40-mile week — the peak of my marathon training, and my highest mileage week ever.

Then I taper. Then I kill 26.2. So excited.