TEMPO - 11 miles with 9 @ MP 6:59/mi

Tough effort tempo run today that otherwise went well. I was hoping to go faster than 7:00/mi, but alas, neither the legs nor the heart were having it despite my best intentions. Didn't feel any easier than in the past as well, unfortunately, but the main reason for this is certainly the fast 7:11/mi 18 miler on Sun and then the 6:40-5ish 3 x 2 miles on Tuesday, which sets me up for a fairly tough tempo Thursday.

Miles 2-11 are the tempo portion

Kept my HR at 145-153 for pretty much the entire tempo run, which to me still feels more like a HM pace (8/10 intensity) effort than a marathon effort, at least at 7min/mile. (Mile 10 was particularly hard, 9/10 effort!) We'll see how things go in the upcoming few weeks, but I def have significant doubts about running this pace for a full 26.2 even tapered. If I'm not close to a realistic sub7 pace in the last 2-3 weeks of training, I'm going to race the marathon for a safe BQ instead of going for the gold and pushing as low as I can under sub 3:05 (my 5k estimate) that I can go.

I currently have a sore tendon on my left patella, the lateral quad (vastus lateralis) but which doesn't affect my running at all. I'm watching it to make sure it doesn't flare up and worsen - am planning for this weekend to be a non-fast long run weekend since I've done the last 3 weekends fairly fast.

Strava Garmin