Today was my last marathon paced run before Rotterdam. Plan was to run total of 12 miles, but somewhere out there I miscalculated, and ended up with almost 13. It was very warm, in the 60s, and there were tons of people in the park and on the sidewalks around it. Few times I had to stop dead in my tracks just to navigate through people!
Ran about 4 miles warmup, and started on the tempo segment. Garmin was acting up again, and I really couldn't trust it, it was in and out.First tempo loop at about 8:05 pace, feeling okay, but not in the mood to go faster. At that point, I saw a woman running in fron of me, maybe 30m ahead. She kept very good strong pace, and I tried to keep up with her. At London Zoo, she moved into the road, because it was impossible to run on the sidewalk, and I followed her, even though I am usually terrified to run on the road with the traffic, because I can't see the cars coming from behind. But I was running behind her, and it gave me some peace of mind, not to mention made it easier to run without dodging people. I followed her for the next 3 miles, and my average pace dropped to 7:56. But I could fel that I was working a bit too hard, and the last 0.5 mi. I backed off a little to a more comfortable effort. In the end, I averaged 7:58 pace for 6 miles. Then jogged home around 9:30 pace (more people dodging). By the end, I felt very tired - I also didn't drink or eat anything on this run. Total time 1:47:24.
I'm starting to worry about the weather being too warm for marathon in Rotterdam. As of now, forecast for next Sunday is 61F and sunny. | 