This Saturday’s long run was to be progressive pace. That means that each mile is to be 15 seconds faster that the previous. It is to culminate in an all out mile preceeded by two miles at 10K pace. My 10K pace should be about 7:45 per mile based upon my MGP of 8:35 and the McMillan calculator. For me this is quite fast. This means that I would run my first mile at 9:30 per mile. Last night with my sore ankle I thought that maybe I should just do the mileage, and not try to achieve this performance level. I sent a note to my coach asking him his opinion. However I never got a response. When I was driving at 5:30 AM it started to rain and thunder. While standing waiting with the other runners in the rain I decided to start by myself regardless of the weather. Soaking wet with fogged glasses I continued on up Shoal Creek on my own never even considering my performance. I was just trying to get it done. It was too dark and rainy to even see the mileage cones. Finally it started to clear up about mile 4. After the turnaround at mile 5 I met up with my coach who told me that he had gotten my e-mail and he wanted me to take it easy. I assured him that was indeed what I was doing. This time as I ran back down on Shoal Creek I finally saw the mileage cones. Then at mile eight the sky darkened, and the rain started to pour again. I ended in a downpour in 1:42 or about 10:12 per mile. That definitely wasn’t my fastest, but at least I did the miles and I did them easy. On the way home I iced my ankle.
