11/9 long run

OK - so Sunday I did my first long run since Baltimore. I drove out to the C&O Canal Path with Karolina and my brother. It was a perfect autumn day for running. We parked near Lock 11, did some easy stretching and started running south towards Georgetown. It's a gradual downhill heading towards the district making things easier at the start.

Mikey and I started things slow for the first mile and gradually settled into 7:50 - 7:45 pace. It wasn't too crowded and we chatted away while making our way towards Fletchers Boathouse. I carried a single gel flask filled with two servings of Raspberry Hammer Gel and water. It a nice diluted mix that provides 200 calories. Given the cool temperature, I didn't carry a water bottle. When we hit 5 miles on my Garmin Forerunner 305, we stopped for a few seconds and then made our way back towards Lock 11. We passed Karolina after a few minutes later and told her where to turnaround. She was running well at her pace and always smiling!

After an easy 6th mile, we slowly started to pick things up. Right around that time my stomach started to send me signals. Luckily there was a bathroom at Lock 6 and I was able to take care of things. After a short break, we started running again and this time we really started to pick things up. I wanted to get down to my marathon goal pace of 7:15 for the final couple miles. With Mikey gradually picking things up, we got down to 7:25, 7:10, and then 6:58 over the final three miles. My HR went from averaging in the low 150s to threshold (169).

Overall, it was a solid long run. I felt relaxed and comfortable the whole way until picking things up at the very end. Nutrition was OK except for the potty stop which was likely due to the heavy dinner I had the night before a the Dogfish Head Ale House.

Below is the data from my Garmin.

Mile	Split	HR	Pace
1	0:08:37	130	0:08:37
2	0:07:51	144	0:08:14
3	0:07:51	147	0:08:06
4	0:07:46	150	0:08:01
5	0:07:47	151	0:07:58
6	0:08:12	150	0:08:01
7	0:07:41	154	0:07:58
8	0:07:25	156	0:07:54
9	0:07:10	166	0:07:49
10	0:06:58	169	0:07:44

Summary: 10 miles, 1:17:24, 7:44 pace, 151 average HR.

Thanks for reading.