Today's run went pretty well for a 20 mile run. I was ready to start running just after 6:00. I was supposed to meet up with someone but he had said that if he's not there by 6:00 then start without him, so I did, which was good since he decided not to show up. This is understandable since there was some thunder but it seemed to be far enough away. Temp and humidity were not too bad, not ideal for running but certainly tolerable.
Started out at a pretty easy pace, 8:45 - 9:15 for the first few miles. My garmin was still on 0.25's for the splits. I decided to leave it that way for a while. The first few miles were not difficult. This is nice when that happens because those are oftentimes very difficult. I stopped at the lake park for some water and powerade gel, then continued on towards the high school. Drank the accelerade I was carrying on my belt and refilled with water at the high school. At about mile 8 I was feeling pretty good. I did two loops through the neighborhood at the corner of east lake and keystone. There are a couple small hills in there, not too tough but a little bit of variety to break up the flat monotony. After this I was on my way back. I did a few miles at marathon pace. I was running low on water so I looped through lake park on the way back, drank some water and refilled my bottles. After I left there, the Garmin said I had done 16.02, less then 4 miles left! Felt really good about that and did the next mile at marathon pace. I slowed down a little bit for the next mile as my average pace was right where I wanted it to be. But the next mile I felt it was getting harder to keep my pace, even my slower pace. I didn't want to slow down too much. Finally just one mile left to go. I wanted the run to be over at this point. I had to go 0.5 miles past where I was parked - which is tough psychologically when you have to loop past the "finish line" and then come back. I finished the last mile at 7:58. I might have been able to go faster - although it would have been very hard - but there was not much point to doing that. Average pace was 8:13 I ran into a few of the other runners who were doing long runs and had some gatorade, grapes, and a soy joy bar. Legs felt kind of tight but not bad. Knees did not hurt during the run. I got home, stepped the wrong way and felt some pain in my right knee. Took a quick ice bath - although there wasn't that much ice. Then I got into the pool for a bit to loosen up. Iced the knee and took some advil, feels ok now. Glycerin - 89.7 | 