Long Run

After another rest day on Friday I headed back to the Gazelles for the Saturday long run. My knee and hips feel a lot better after the extra days of rest. The plan for today is to do about a 16 mile run with the ATT folks who are doing another 20 miler. The weather was warm and muggy...not typical January weather for Austin. I ran with shorts and a t-shirt. I ran with Jay and Leslie and we took a pace that is slower than what I am used to averaging just under 9:00 pace for the run. Once we finished I realized that this pace would be my new marathon long run training pace which was pretty cool. We ran the beginning portion of the ATT course which is the worst part of the course. It is where you get the majority of the hills. It wasn't so bad going at a slower pace and we enjoyed ourselves along the way. We stopped for water on South First with G's rolling water stop and then hit the two water stops on the trail. We hit another water stop on Shoal Creek and one more on Duval. We had plenty of water for the run. My legs felt good all morning and we did pick it up by about 30 seconds over the last two miles. I felt a lot better than I expected. I guess my extra rest really helped.

I didn't stick around to stretch with the group, but did the full routine plus some ab work when I got home.

Stats - 16.75 miles/2:30:24/8:58 pace
AHR - 131
MHR - 150