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Fantastic Long Run

March 24, 2019 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
Ran out to Dobrinja, behind their airport through Butmir, into Ilijda, over the river and up the Velika Alija through Vrelo Bosna and finally around through the suburbs of Osijek, Bjelace, Dolozi, and Azici before finishing at tram stop at Stup. https://www.strava.com/activities/2237168459

I was attempting to follow the BAA workout for this week, which called for 5k warm-up, 10k at marathon goal pace +20 seconds/mile, 10k at marathon goal pace + 10 sec/mile, 5k at marathon pace, and then a couple of miles cooldown. I actually managed to stick to it for the most part though goodness knows what my marathon pace actually is at this point. I was kinda frustrated after the first 10k because my pace had started out strong in the 6:30s and then dropped to 7:15. Also, my hip had started hurting. Nevertheless, after taking a few minutes to do legs swings and stretches, I recommitted myself to a hard next 10k and changed from listening to podcasts to music so that I could focus more on my pace while still keeping up a bit of distraction to avoid thinking about how tired or pained I was. It worked! The next five miles were all in the 6:08-6:20 range, with the sixth mile falling to 6:29 only because I was wandering around the Vrlo Bosna (spring of the Bosnia river) park and trying to navigate sharp turns and avoid pedestrians. I paused for a couple of minutes to catch my breath and refocus (which I figured was okay since we generally 2-3 water stops during our BAA long runs) and then charged ahead more or less as fast as I could for the next 25 minutes. Thus it was that my 5k at marathon pace ended up being a whole 4 miles at something that is almost certainly faster than I can run a marathon these days: 6:07-6:14 - but I'm very proud of myself nonetheless. Managed to find a good balance between focus and distraction and convinced myself I was strong and capable. It was pretty sunny but not exactly hot; a beautiful day to be out walking around and a reasonable one for a long-distance run. I jogged/slogged 2 miles back to to the nearest tram stop feeling overjoyed to have completed my last long run of the season the way I was supposed to. Now it's time to rest up for the big day in Boston, 3 weeks hence!