Todays long run

I ran a solid 8 miles at a nice slow pace today. Woke up at 5:00 am and had two slices of toast with cream cheese and then a Gatorade G1 series prime, and was on the treadmill at 5:35. I also had two G2 series Gatorade drinks which I sipped at the mile marks. Sadly I ran out around mile 7, but since I only ran 8 it was not so bad.

I ran at a 16 minute mile pace for the first half, and a 15 minute mile pace for the second half. A negative split! The negative split is always my goal in these runs, even though these are long slow base building workouts.

I also monitored my heart rate on the treadmills heart rate monitor. I was steady in the 120's all the way out to about mile 5 when it drifted up to about 135 by the end of the run. So today, overall, was quite positive, with 33 days to the half-marathon I am comfortable in the knowledge that I can run 13.1 miles, my time might not be as impressive but I do have some speedier short runs coming up this week. Capped by a long run of 6 miles next Sunday and then a 10 miler the Sunday after that, and then I back off my miles in preparation for the half on April 6th.

Post race, I have some soreness in my left arch, which I am treating with some ice and then will stretch out the arch using some arch exercises I just found online.

Travel and Running

I have been traveling quite a bit, Washington DC and Seattle Washington, during this running plan and will hit Seattle twice and Austin Texas as well as Springfield in the next few months. So I need to get organized when I am on the road, which oddly enough the first time I was out in Seattle was harder then I thought, because since it was 40 degrees and wet I did not pack the proper "keep warm" wear! So I ended up a $19 retail version of a treadmill in the hotel for an hour.

Treadmilling

I am a member of Snap Fitness in Valley Lakes which is convenient and walking distance from the house, they have treadmills which are nice with TV's. However management does not do much in the way of fixing broken TV's and audio issues, which can be frustrating for those long runs. The treadmills work fine however.

Most of my runs have been indoors on the treadmill since the weather has been unpleasant and cold out. I can time my runs and record them with the Garmin, although splits and pacing are not recorded.

I am not sure if its me, or just an illusion I always seem to run further and faster outdoors, perhaps the treadmill is off when it comes to pacing itself, anyway since my marathons are outdoors I am not going to complain.