Today I finished off week 12 in my training for the 2013 New York City Marathon with a great 13.5-mile run in East Nashville, Shelby Park, and the Shelby Bottoms Greenway with our running group. One of the things that made it great was getting a very nice break in the temperatures. When Nathan and I got out of my car by the train trestle in Shelby Park, it was only 62° with humidity that was not too terrible for July.
The train trestle in Shelby Park just before this morning’s group run.
Before the group all arrived for the run, Nathan and I got in 1/2-mile warmup out-and-back to the Shelby Bottoms Greenway Nature Center. Our group then started with a 4-mile loop that incorporated a couple of laps around big pond in Shelby Park and a short distance on Electric Avenue. On the way to Shelby Park, Nathan and I prepared for the run by listening to the song Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant, which I had not heard in a LONG time.
These first 4-miles were quite hilly, but my legs felt much better than I expected after the disastrous track workout on Thursday night. Dan had to remind me not to push the pace, since the goal today was simply slow, easy miles.
After grabbing a quick drink back at the cars, we did a second 4-mile loop on the Shelby Bottoms Greenway and Barclay Drive, and my legs continued to feel really good in the mild conditions. After this loop was completed, Nathan and I were at 8.5-miles in total. My schedule called for 12-miles, but there were some members of the group that were going to do as many as 8-miles out-and-back on the Greenway for the third part of the run. I knew I didn’t want/need 16-miles, but my legs felt good enough that I suggested to Nathan we try to do 2.5-miles out-and-back to end up with a total of 13.5, which would be my longest run since the injury by over 3 miles. This is exactly what we did, and I felt strong all the way to the end. We even dropped below 8min pace for the final 1.5-miles.
This run was a BIG confidence boost after a rough track workout on Thursday night. In total we completed 13.56-miles with an average pace of 8:52 per mile. Perfect long run! For the week, I got in just under 38 total miles. Slowly building my way back up.
On a side note, I’m still having some problems with my left hip after tweaking it earlier this week. However, it continues to feel better as I run on it, and doesn’t affect my stride, so I’m going to try and train through it unless it gets a lot worse.
After the run, our group had an awesome breakfast at Sky Blue Cafe in East Nashville where they have Trivial Pursuit question cards on the table. It was a lot of fun taking turns on the trivia questions.
Beast Mode….ON!
With Brian, Marc, Josh, and Mark after the (very wet) trail run
