Start time: 4/4/09, 10:30am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Average pace: 9:11min/mile

Start time: 4/5/09, 10:30am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Average pace: 9:17min/mile

Total Miles For April: 28 miles
Total Miles For 2009: 218 miles

Normally, I’d have run a 20-miler this weekend. But more and more I’m hearing the same thing (and from a variety of sources); instead of running a 20-mile training run, you’ll get the same endurance benefit if you run two 12-milers that weekend (one each morning) and it’s less stress on the body. So, since I have no real goals other than “finish” for next month’s marathon, I figured I really need to give this a proper shot.

The first 12-miler I ran with Charlie, who was a great pacer. We ran on the W&OD Trail, first heading downhill for a mile and a half before climbing all the way until mile 7 (marker 7.5) at which point we turned back down towards the finish. It was a beautiful morning, but windy like there was no tomorrow. So windy, in fact, that when we hit mile 7, we turned around there when originally our turnaround point was half a mile further up the trail. I just couldn’t take the wind pushing us backwards, and Charlie agreed. Looking at how much our times promptly dropped once we got out of the combination of climbing and really strong headwinds? Pretty funny. A nice solid pace and even with some negative splits to boot.

Today’s 12-miler was all by myself. I ran an additional mile downhill (all the way to marker 1) before turning around and beginning my climb. Once again, I turned around a tiny bit early (mile 8, or marker 6.5) but in this case it wasn’t wind but rather severe trail congestion up ahead. Seriously, at the 6.5 marker on the W&OD I could see all the way to the bridge where marker 7 is located, and it was just clogged full of families teaching kids how to ride bicycles. Um, no thanks. So once again, I ended up turning early and once I got back to the start, ran an additional half mile before turning around yet again to finish. All on my lonesome (and with additional early downhill) I definitely headed out too fast at first, and on the way uphill I was really dragging. But towards the end I got a little bit of my rhythm back, and best of all my total time for Sunday was only 1:19 slower than Saturday.

The one bad thing is that all weekend my right ankle’s been bothering me a bit. It feels like I strained a tendon in it, so I’ve been doing all the right things (ice, elevating, anti-inflammatories) and I’m going to take a few days off to be certain and let it heal.

Will this really work in place of a 20-miler? I guess I’ll find out in four weeks…

9:15, 9:24, 9:26, 9:32, 9:36, 9:18, 9:28, 8:48, 8:51, 8:56, 8:40, 8:52
8:35, 8:29, 8:40, 9:17, 9:43, 9:32, 9:50, 9:23, 9:16, 9:29, 9:25, 9:46