With trepedation and nerves

Today's run: Medium-Long Run of 15.6 miles at 8:03 pace.

I have to admit to feeling rather nervous about today's run for several days now. This would be the first run where I would attempt to run at my goal pace for an extended distance. The plan was to run 3 miles as a warm-up, then 12 more at 8:00 pace.

I was nervous for a few reasons:

• The left knee bothered me as recently as last Sunday, and hurt some during last Saturday's 14 mile run,
• I have yet to develop any skill at pacing myself, and
  
• My previous runs of this kind of distance have been slower by at least 20 to 40 seconds.

I prepared for this run by modifying last week's route slightly, and trying to figure out where the mile-markers would be to give an indication of pace. I knew that Galen would join me.

I was again pleasantly stunned to find so many K-Stars deciding to come along. We started wth 8 runners who were willing to go with that plan. We also started too fast, covering the "warm up" miles at 8:08 pace, instead of a more warm-up-like pace of 8:30 or 8:45 that Galen and I had planned.

Beautiful morning to run. Bright, clear sky with a cool breeze to cool us off. We seemed to be approximately on pace from the start, but my mile-markers were not precise, and my watch disagreed with Meredith's, so there was some skepticism from the get go.

Reaching a turnaround point that I had only seen via satellite imagery, all the splits seemed to go haywire. It turned out later that we missed the turnaround, thereby adding a half-mile.

Coming up the Great Highway, we were blasted with a hard wind. Uphill and into the wind. Very hard going. The wind stayed with us all the way up the Great Highway, and it was along that road that we splintered, with Chris, Dave and Meredith sticking with me (or me with them). We picked up the pace, too, covering two miles in that headwind at 15 seconds per mile ahead of our desired pace. During one of those miles, I took my energy gel (another new flavor), and was surprised that I could both keep pace and take the gel. A very good test for the race.

With a couple of miles to go, I could feel my legs start to complain mightily. I developed a healthy skepticism that I would be able to do this pace for 26.2 miles. I struggled to keep up with the other three. Still, I kept them just ahead of me, and somehow managed to finish the run only 5-10 seconds after they did. The best part: my knees didn't hurt at any point during the run

Later, calculating the pace for the 12 (12.6, as it turned out) miles where I was trying to keep pace, the pace comes to 8:00 on the button. Wow. Even adding in the 3 mile warm up, I just need to be able to add 10 and a half miles at that same pace and I'll be right on my goal.

Good day!