18 Mile Progression Run With Brian King

Brian King came over to the house this morning at 5:30 for an 18-miler. We didn't really want this to be a slow, ho-hum long-run and it wasn't.

We started off at a decent pace, no just-warming-up first mile of eight minutes or something. We talked about holding an overall pace of 7:30 or better and were on that number through four miles. In anticipation of a cold morning I had laid out everything I would need to stay warm but left some of it behind (tights, extra shirt, extra pair of gloves) because it was well into the 40s when we started. One thing I did wear which I ended up regretting was Toastie Toes inside my shoes. My feet get cold very easily and these things work great but they were bothering me early on and we had to stop at around four miles to take one out, then again at around five miles to take the other one out.

We went nine miles out and nine miles back. Other than the two brief stops mentioned above we stopped only once - for water at about 11 miles. After that stop, and with the wind more at our backs than it had been going out, we started to pick things up versus how we had run the first half.

Here are the splits so you can see what I'm talking about:

1: 7:31
2: 7:24
3: 7:21
4: 7:53 (includes the first stop)
5: 7:10
6: 7:53 (includes the second stop)
7: 7:27
8: 7:21
9: 7:19
10: 7:26
11: 8:18 (includes our water stop at the elementary school that's on the course)
12: 7:07
13: 7:11
14: 7:12
15: 7:13
16: 7:05
17: 7:07
18: 6:28

It was great to have something left in the tank and drop that last mile the way we did. Good job Brian - I was determined to hang on. Let's do it at mile sixteen next time like we did last summer.