12 Miles!

I ran 12 miles today! Woot! It was one of those mornings where I left and told Scott I wasn't sure how long I'd be gone... Maybe an hour and a half? But then I got out there and was just trotting along and felt just fine and couldn't think of a reason to turn around before 6 miles. :) To be honest I think I could have kept going today but I didn't want to get all greedy about it b/c that's how I get myself hurt. So 12 miles it was. AND, I negative split ~by almost 3 minutes!~ which was no easy feat given the route I ran. Basically I jogged 3 miles downhill then 3 more flat miles without looking at my watch at all. It was very relaxed and I felt like I wasn't giving more than ~3/10. Checked my watch just for fun and saw 58:18, avg 9:42 pace. So ok my goal became to get every mile on the way home <9:42 pace, which I figured would be a no brainer on the flat part but last 3 miles uphill might present a bit of a challenge. But I did it! Last 3 miles were 9:34, 9:26, 9:22 which given the uphill and the distance of the run, was satisfying.

It sure was nice to feel decent on a long run. I got in just over 33 miles this week which is by far the most running I've done since sometime in January. Hip isn't 100% happy but it's no worse than it was after that 10 mile run on Thursday (still registering ~1/10 on the pain scale) so really quite manageable.

I had a swim lesson to teach this afternoon, which was good b/c it forced me to drag myself to the pool, which I don't typically do on weekends. I went early and got a lazy 3K done before the lesson... Pretty much felt like ass but I know the 4th swim of the week is an important one when I can make myself get it in. 4 swims/week boosts fitness in a way that 3 swims/week does not, even if the 4th one is lazy like mine was today.

Overall I got in 19.5 hours of training this week... After 17.5 last week... A few more weeks like this and it'll be a legit training block!