The road to 13.1: Two runs, 19.5 miles

For sure, as the end of Borgess Run Camp nears, the mileage has increased.  This week will have proven to be the peak, though; we’re starting our taper with next week’s run.

I’m only partially excited about that.  While the taper is nice from a race-preparation standpoint, I’ll feel less able to consume a pair of Biggby Mocha Caramels if I’m not burning up mega-calories. *sigh*

Thursday was another short run.  Sheila wasn’t there, so Sofia and I depended upon Nancy to lead the way.  Mary joined us later.  Results:

Run #40:  5 miles, 48:55, 9:47/mile

This was a rather hard run, despite the distance.  We were all sort of tired, and just didn’t seem to have the zip that we had last week.  Still, we churned out a pretty decent time.  That time served as a good encouragement for the big Saturday run.  I wanted to get in at least 14 miles as part of my effort to simultaneously prepare for two races.  I managed to accomplish that, and a little more.

Run #41:  14.5 miles, 2:33:14, 10:34/mile

I’m very, very happy with this run.  Sure, I was slower on the second half of the course, but there were two very good reasons for that:

1) Because the entire first half of the run — away from the trailhead — was downhill, the entire second half of the run was uphill.

2) I slowed a couple of times to chat with folks along the way.

I’m suddenly feeling very confident about the Borgess Run for the Health of It.  Granted, it’s a challenging course, but the Mount Olivet Road hill doesn’t look so scary compared to Maple Street, and I’ve covered the distance twice now.  This time, I was about 2 minutes faster today than I was last week when I first hit the distance.  Both of my drops in speed for conversational purposes were inside of the 13.1-mile mark; I think I could have taken another minute off the time if I had wanted to, but I wasn’t trying to run for time today.  Well, not entirely, anyway….