Had a nicely paced 14 miles today.
Our Saturday group usually takes off at 7:30, so I arrived around 6:45 to tackle 4 miles and make it back in time to run with the group and do the 10 mile loop.
We had our run club holiday party last night so I was definitely not on my normal way of eating and somewhat paid for it. I had to make a pit stop after mile 4 before meeting up with everyone. I did wake up early in the morning to take my usuals: espresso, Generation UCAN, MCT oil, and Nuun. This time I tried out the lemon flavor UCAN and it was surprisingly good. Kind of reminded me of a lemon Italian ice flavor. I was a bit worried after having the orange flavor that I wouldn’t like another citrus flavor, but I’m glad that I was wrong.
Still, my usual pre run items would not make up for all the crap I ate last night and I paid for it a bit.
The run itself was good other than the fact I forgot to enable my GPS on my watch. I’ve been having issues with the watch, so I used my phone’s GPS logger as a backup luckily, but I didn’t think about until 2 miles in. Since my watch was relying on my foot pod and it appears the foot pod underestimates my speed, I ended up running my 14 at a much faster pace than I originally planned. My goal was about a 9:30-9:45 pace. 30-45 seconds higher than my goal marathon pace as suggested by my plan. After loading my GPS file into Strava, it appears I was around 8:45 pace. I really couldn’t tell by effort level and my heart rate was at an average of 151 which is right around my Maffetone 180 rate.
In a way it’s nice to know I can keep that keep that pace consistently and even comfortably for 14. I did start to feel some hunger around mile 12, but my legs were fine and I was even able to push the last 4 miles steadily increasing pace.
Side Note: I’ve been feeling a bit of pain on the top of my foot and it’s really got me thinking. I’ve done the usual metatarsal stress fracture test and it doesn’t seem to be that. There is no noticeable swelling or bruising. The pain is there when I’m not running. Walking, driving, etc so I’m inclined to think it has something to do with my arthritic joints and cold weather. They always act up in the winter. At least I’m hoping that’s just what it is. I will keep monitoring it and may have to take a some time off. (I hope not)
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