Notes
Final MP LR of the progression, 16 miles! Stuck to the plan and did it as part of a 22 miler; ran my Powder Point Bridge run from Pembroke to avoid stoplights etc. Wanted to start at 6:15ish and work down to ~6:05... unfortunately, didn't work out in that perfect scenario. First mile was my fastest like a noob! Mostly that was due to the conditions, was fighting the wind much of the way from Powder Point on back, as well as dealing with some hills. By the time I got to the flat and protected final few miles, I was pretty gassed and just did my best to hold the line.
Ended up with a 6:14 avg pace for the tempo, slower than I wanted, but I'm still happy with this. It was a long tough effort, challenged my focus. There were a few stretches into the wind where I thought I was gonna have to call it early but was able to get through and make it to greener pastures where I would feel better. In better conditions I probably could have averaged a few seconds faster, but dunno that 6:07 was in the cards today... I think this run shows that I should set my sights a little lower for the marathon, aim for a 6:10-6:15 average. Was expecting this run to be tough, and knew that I wasn't going to finish tempo feeling like I could go another 10 at MP even on the best day, but still... a slower goal pace seems prudent. If everything goes well, maybe I can surprise myself... I'm pretty confident that I will better on race day w/ a good taper and some rest.
Experimented with some GU today, hard to tell how much of a difference it made but it at least didn't seem to hurt. Strawberry-Banana flavor was just fine.
POST: hip mobility
Week 15/20: Quite a week for me! A little lower mileage, but two SOLID quality days, nice and long. Hay is mostly in the barn at this point, a few more weeks of good training but nothing too crazy, and then ~2 week taper. New Bedford HM next week will be a good final checkpoint to see where I'm at and what my final goal should be. NEED more hip mobility!