The changing leaves are a sure sign of fall.

It was so hard to get out of bed this morning to walk. The weather was rotten Friday and Saturday with lots of rain and clouds, and I expected it to be just as bad today. As I laid in bed, I was thinking about where I could walk where I would be least likely to quit halfway through. (Sharon Woods with the 3.8-mile loop.)

When I finally got out of bed, I was pleasantly surprised to see the sun! It was a little chilly, but there was sun.

One of my goals today was to walk faster than I have on my last few long days and try to maintain close to my intended race pace. I also hoped to pay more attention to my heart rate so I’ll use my heart rate monitor better on race day. Halfway to the park I realized I left the chest strap to the HR monitor at home. Darn!

Without the monitor, I decided to just try to walk at a pace close to a 14-min. mile. I always start a little slow and it takes at least a mile for me to warm up. My first mile was 14:44 and I sped up to 14:09 for mile 2 and 14:01 for mile 3. I stayed near that pace until the last two miles which were 13:49 and 13:43. Though I was breathing a little bit hard, I could have easily maintained a conversation. It felt good.

In order to break the 3-hour mark, I’m going to have to walk all 13 miles faster than 13:45. If I can get warmed up sufficiently, I think I’ll be able to do it. However, there are only two weeks left and I won’t have another long-distance pace day to practice.I’ll just have to be confident my training has paid off.

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