The Long Run

 Saturday's are my long run days most of the time.  Today was no different.  Last weekend my long run wasn't as long as I had wanted because I started to get light headed after about 30 minutes so I cut it short and only ran for 45 minutes. So I was looking forward to today's long run and boy was it worth the wait.  

I had a couple of ideas of where I wanted to run but as has been the case these past few weeks I've been focusing on the cadence and enjoying the act of running.  I took off on my run at about 7:50 and planned on running for 70 minutes as I had something that I needed to do at 10.  

By about 20 minutes I was hitting my stride, I'm still slower than a turtle, and it felt so damn good.  And it wasn't a temporary feeling...it kept going until the end.  Running seemed easy and wasn't any work.  It's on of those runs that you wished would never end or you could bottle up and drink before your next run.  Even now nearly 11 hours later I've got a big smile on my face thinking about that run.  I'd guess it's probably runners high but I'm not sure.  Things were just clicking and I fucking loved every minute of it.  

As for the cadence I was still in the 160's which is a vast improvement but I still have a hard time staying in my zone 1 and those run was mostly zone 1, 50 minutes I believe, and then 20 minutes in zone 2.  So not entirely bad but I would have liked it to be more in zone 1.  Perhaps this is an indicator that my critical power is ever so slightly low.  I'm not sure.  On Monday, perhaps Tuesday, I'm going to do a critical power test that may adjust that number up.  Or at least keep it the same.  

I'm kind of settling into a similar pattern that I had when doing the 10K training this summer.  Which means 1 workout a week, a long run, and some strides which counts as an easy run for a total of 2 easy runs.  I'll see how this goes over the next few months and make adjustments as I need to.  

Hope everyone is having a good fall running season and you are getting those runs in like I had today!

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