Eight Mile.

Yesterday's long run was an 8 miler.  I have a few standard routes at a couple distances (5 miles, 6 miles, and 9 miles) but I don't have an 8 mile route.  I know that is almost exactly 2 miles from our house to the Statehouse downtown, so I decided I would run there, figure out a 4 mile loop around campus and Five Points, and then run home.  I also really wanted to run up the (in)famous Gervais Street hill that I'll have to conquer at mile 11 of the half.  

The goal was to keep my pace around 10:20ish.  I figured that some of the hillier miles might be a little slower, but I could make it up on some of the flatter parts, which is pretty much exactly what happened.

And here's the elevation chart:

Not surprisingly, I got a little fast on the flattest part of the route, but in general, I'm pretty happy with my pace and how I felt on the hills.  The Gervais Street hill is the one there right before mile 4.  It wasn't so bad, but I was less than half way done at still feeling good at that point. (Plus the sidewalk is built so it's more a level, gradual incline than the road.)  I wanted to make sure I ended my last mile with an uphill too, since that more closely simulates the course.

I picked this one by my house:

It looks *extremely* wimpy, but I promise it's actually pretty legit in real life, especially at 7.97 miles of an 8 mile run.  

I still don't see anyyyy way that I'll be able to do this at a 9:02 pace on race day like Smart Coach says, but the hills are definitely sucking less than they did when I started .  Yay for progress!