BIG WORKOUT/LONG RUN
22 miles at 5:47 pace.
Met Ken and Ben at 6 at Rainbow Gardens to drive up to Monte Cristo for our run. We essentially ran 22 miles of the new Huntsville Marathon. The goal was to get some faster downhill training in for St. George preparation. The run was absolutely beautiful, Huntsville may end up being a popular marathon with the downhill and the scenary!
We decided to do Ben's patented marathon workout. It's 3 miles at marathon pace, 2 miles at half pace, 1 at 10k, 1200 at 5k, 800 at 3k, and 400 at mile pace. You run equal distance in between each one for recovery (so 3 miles easy after 3 mile pickup and 2 miles easy after 2 mile pickup etc.)
Here were the splits:
3 miles: 5:30 5:33 5:31
2 miles: 5:02 4:59
1 mile: 4:51
1200: 3:36 (4:48 pace)
800: 2:20 (4:40 pace)
400: 1:04 (4:16 pace)
The 3- and 2-mile pickups were conversational. The mile wasn't too bad but not quite conversational, and then the 1200 down were much more difficult. I'm very happy with this run, clearly it was very aided but still it was a solid effort. Ken and I were talking at the end how we could run 4.2 miles more and slow down over a minute a mile and still both crush our marathon PRs.
This was another weekly mileage PR for me at 76 miles! | 
