AM - Well I was feeling a bit better this morning which hopefully means I have almost kicked this illness. The plan was to do the normal 10 mile route but to throw in a 3 mile marathon pace tempo in the middle. I had to run early, 5:00am, so I was on my own which probably was a good thing anyway as I would not be tempted to push too hard while I am still trying to recover and get healthy. I decieded that I would not look at my watch at all today. I would start the watch and then just run by feel and afterwards see what the watch said. I figured this way I would not push myself too hard. I ran the first 5 miles very relaxed and easy as a warm-up and then figured I would work my way into what felt like marathon pace effort. It was tempting to want to look at the watch but I refrained from doing so until I was done with the entire 10 miles. The first mile felt a little slower than marathon pace but it was what my body wanted to do as it was very dark and cold (37'F). I held this same effort but it started to feel too easy as I went along so I focused on relaxing and trying to pick it up to something closer to marathon effort during the third mile. The third mile felt closer to marathon pace effort but still pretty relaxed and comfortable. I definetely could have gone alot faster but the goal was to keep it easy and relaxed but get something close to marathon pace at the same time. So when I stopped the watch and looked at it for the first time at the 10.1 mile mark I saw that my average pace for the entire run was 7:06. Pulling up the splits the first 5 miles was about where I would have guessed being around 7:40 pace once I got going. When I started to pick it up for the three mile section the splits were 6:23, 6:23, and 5:55. The first two were a little slower than I would have wanted but the third was a little faster than I would have guessed. It did not feel like I picked it up very much at all. This was an easier effort than I origionally planned but again that is probably good as I need to get healthy this week. I ran easy the last two miles but still did them at 6:40 pace and felt like I was jogging. I saw Sasha and Jeff right before I finished. Plan to run some more easy miles tonight as long as I am feeling ok. PM - Added 4 miles running on grass during Jared's soccer game. 2 with James, 1/2m with Jared and rest on my own. Very easy.
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