A great 13 Miles

I haven't been having "great" runs lately, and to get two of them in one week is quite a feat!

I forgot to measure my wakeup HR this morning, but I felt pretty good. I left home about 9:30 am, and the morning sun was heating up the air outside. I ran on the Jordan River Parkway again. My pace for the first mile was 11 minutes 50 seconds. I took it slow to warm up. My pace for the second mile was about 11:30. During the third mile I had to walk up the big hill, and my time when I reached the end of mile 3 was exactly 36 minutes. At the end of mile 5 my time was exactly 60 minutes. At that point I decided it was too hot to push myself so I slowed down and ran a comfortable pace for the rest of the run. My pace for the first five miles was also at a comfortable pace, just a faster but still comfortable pace. I finished the 13 miles in 2 hours 53 minutes for an average of 13.3 minutes per mile. That time included walking breaks at each mile, where I drank water and/or Gatorade (a total of 40 ounces of liquid during the run), walking up the big hill from both directions, and 3 or 4 extra walking breaks at 1/2 mile markers. Considering the heat, I think I did well. I wasn't as tired today as I have been in the past.

For about a hundred feet, I had two running partners. A mother duck and her big duckling were on the path. There were lots of thick bushes between the path and the river, and the ducks didn't know what to do, so they just kept walking in front of me. Finally, the duckling turned into the bushes. The mother duck continued on the path for about 10 feet, and then she took to the air and flew to the river.

When I got back to my car, I found a shady spot to do my stretches -- the steel tunnel for the Parkway path that goes under the residential street that borders the parking lot.

Training Graphs