Longest Run before Marathon – 21 Miles – Nov 22,2008

Today was the final longest run before the marathon on Dec-14. Over the next two weeks, we taper town and the distance for the long run gradually decreases. It was another cold day to run. So, I decided to run with a two layer clothing (2 T-shirts). I was again running with the 9 min/mile group with whom I have been running for the past 3 weeks. We started a little slow doing about 9:10 min/mile for the first 4 miles. Then we slowly picked up pace and by the time we took our first break after 7 miles, we were doing 9:05 min/mile. We continued to maintain the pace of 9min/mile but we did the 9^th mile at 8:40 min/mile which took us to an average pace of 9 min/mile pace after 14 miles. The last time I ran with this group, I started to break down after 14 miles and was not able to keep up with the group after 15 miles. This time, I was feeling good after 14 miles and although it was up hill from 14 to 19 miles, I was able to keep pace with the group. We took our last water break at 17.5 miles. For the next 2 miles, I felt good and was able to keep pace with the group. After 19.5 miles, I started getting tired but because of the traffic, we stopped at a traffic light for about 20 seconds which gave me a chance to cool down a bit and we started again. It was a little difficult for the last 1 mile but I was able to keep the pace with the group without much effort. We finished the 21 miles at exactly 9min/mile pace. I was not too tired after the run and that is reflected in the average heart rate of 160. I was also happy to have finished the long run without having to walk at any point during the run.

I ran the most miles in a week, 41 miles, this week , than I ever had in the course of my entire marathon training

It would be great to maintain this pace for the marathon! From here on, it is a tapering down and the distance gradually comes down for the weekday and weekend runs. The next big run would be on the race day in 3 weeks from now !

Here are the stats from the GPS:

Activity	Type	Activity	Type	Miles	Time (HH:MM:SS)	Avg. Pace (min/Mile)	Avg. Speed	Calories Burnt	Avg. Heart Rate
Morning	Morning	Evening	Evening
Running	Long Run	None	None	21.08	3:09:54	9:00	6.7	2735	160