Week 11/17 HM Training - Run #4 LSD 16 km

COULD THEY MAKE THE BANANAS ANY BIGGER ?!?!?!

You will have to wait until the end of my post to understand the context of this very funny comment! :)

Today's run was my strongest 16 km to date! :) And the last 2 km were the fastest splits! Woo hoo!

There will be three posts today; this is #2. I have already posted my weekly mileage and I have already written a review on how the Strength Work phase went for me, which will automatically publish this evening while I am in Stratford. :)

This really is a wrap-up day. Week #11 is ending, the Strength Work phase of my training program is ending, and in a sense, I am going on hiatus for a week, as of tomorrow. My training program is focused on my Niagara Falls Half Marathon as my goal race. However, because I am running in the Springbank Road Race Half Marathon a week from today, I inserted an extra week into my program as a spare/race taper week. My official Week #12 of training, the first of five weeks focused on Phase III: Track Work, does not begin until a week from tomorrow. Depending on how I feel after this half marathon, I will likely need to make a few edits to Week #12, but I am hoping it won't be too many. :)

But all this is distracting from my 16 km today, which was a good one. I was looking forward to today's run. I needed it as a confidence-booster for my upcoming HM. Last weekend's race proved to me that I could hold my pace very steady, and today's run proved to me that I have the endurance. After an upcoming, restful, taper week, my challenge will be to put both pace and endurance together for my first half marathon of the fall. :)

Highlights of today's run:

1. Seeing so many runners and running groups out in full force. It is clearly the running/race season. :) Although multiple runners ran by without responding to my wave or smile of acknowledgement, there were that many more who initiated hellos, good mornings, smiles and waves. It was a very social runner day. :)

2. The awesome weather! After yesterday's brutal heat and humidity, today's cooler and cloudier weather made it a great day for a long run.

3. Seeing fellow DailyMiler @Shawna on the path again. :) She was running in the opposite direction as me with some running partners, and it great to see her and exchange some words. :)

4. Smiling like a nutbar when a certain song played in my ear. The song made me grin from ear to ear because I was thinking about Ben, and then I realized how many people were smiling and grinning back at me in response - LOL!

5. I tried out a draft playlist for my upcoming half marathon. Thank you, Suzana, for the suggestion of jog.fm on the DailyMile. I used certain "pace lists" as suggestions and then went through all my music to find the matching songs that I already had. There were some odd choices (Elton John's "Daniel" is a 6:30/km pace song? It nearly put me to sleep while running up a hill!), but overall, it's a good resource to help me "re"discover some music in my files.

6. The runner who made me laugh heartily when I was running my 15th km. She was running toward me in the opposite path when she started waving and called my attention to the fact that we were wearing the same Grand Bend/No Frills tech shirt from last year's Pinery Provincial Park 10K. As I was smiling at her, she whipped off her earbuds, and called out to me very loudly while grabbing at her shirt, "COULD THEY MAKES THE BANANAS ANY BIGGER!?!?!" She was very, very funny. :) And she proved to me that yes, I still have enough energy and lung capacity to have a good laugh near the end of a 16K run. :)

Benny and I are now off to Stratford for the day and evening. We are heading to friends' to enjoy some red wine with them before heading out for dinner to a new favourite place down the street from the Avon Theatre. I have been looking forward to returning to this restaurant aaaaall summer so I am a very happy camper. :) A great way to bid the summer farewell and welcoming in Autumn. :)