Perfect Ending

Have a little down time here before dinner with some out-of-town family.  Wanted to update before I lose momentum.  I had a 22-23 miler on the schedule for yesterday.  After a pretty full week I was a bit intimidated by the distance.  Met up with Rob in RCP where we began a customary trail loop, the one that begins uphill and winds up headed south on the flat Valley Trail.

And it looks like the dinner bus is boarding, so I'll have to pick this up when I return.

***

Back from dinner, and now I'm looking to get to bed.  So it goes.

Long story short is that the 8ish-mile trail loop went by quickly, as it often goes when running with good company.  Split was 63 minutes or so.  Bid farewell to Rob and took off along the 15+ mile N Capitol-Beach Dr loop I've come to know this year.  Ran quicker than I thought and despite feeling the week's miles in the form of some achiness, I was done with the 23+ mile run in exactly 2:59.  Longest run since Grandma's in June, and it felt good to nail it.  Could've been hitting sub-7 min miles toward the end there but I don't have the time or the motivation to verify this with gmaps.  Given that the whole run went by quicker than expected, I'll just trust my instinct.  So that's another solid long training run down.  One more to go until I can start cutting back.  For the record I'll note that I ate a banana about 1.5 hours before starting, and took a gel at about the 2-hr mark.  Felt like this made a difference in the latter miles.  I've been toying with the idea of restricting carb intake immediately before and during longer runs, which I think has had the effect of increasing fat-burning efficiency.  It wasn't far fetched for me to eat a gel every 45 minutes during long runs in the past, and this just seems excessive anymore.  The whole business of consuming 200-300 calories per hour seems like something a gel vendor would promote.  Who knows?  Maybe I'm missing something.

Today was perhaps the perfect ending to a long week, and featured an easy 48 minutes on a mix of roads and trails with Julie, my future sister-in-outlaw (short story: sister-in-law whose marriage is not legally recognized).  Great to go easy, great conversation, and great crisp fall weather.  Conservatively calling it 5 miles.

While I'm certainly feeling the mileage, I can't deny that both yesterday and today mark some pretty good progress in my training.  Feeling good about that, and feeling like I can get through another tough week of runs before tapering down.  Hit about 76 miles this week, won't be looking for much more than 70 through next weekend.