Highest Mileage Week: 42 miles

This week was a good week.   All the knee pain is gone.   Lesson learned......listening to my body is always a good idea.   I'm so glad I took 4 days off last weekend because now (fingers crossed) I seem to be back to 100%.

Monday was a 7 mile tempo.   Felt good and thought the splits were right on target:
9:31
9:02
8:26
7:46
8:40
9:23
9:39

Tuesday was 7 x hill. I wanted to conserve a little energy for my second 20 miler on Wednesday so I didn't give full effort on the hills. I was proud to knock out all 7 though and then we headed to our hill repeat treat.....the petting zoo!! 

Wednesday was a pretty solid 20 miler.   I felt tired in the middle (as evidenced by my splits) but then felt pretty energetic towards the end and finished strong.   All in all a good run.
9:43
9:23
9:24
9:34
9:38
9:39
9:35
12:31
9:55
9:47
9:53
9:40
9:51
10:11
9:59
9:27
9:25
8:17 (I'm thinking the gps may have glitched here, but maybe I should just give myself credit.)
9:29

Thursday was an off day, followed by an easy 5 miler Friday.   Avg pace 9:14

Saturday was a 7 mile pace run.    I am still a little nervous about my lack of ability to find and hold my race pace.  I am always too fast, but I know that I couldn't hold the faster pace for the entire 26 miles.   I'm going to try this week to focus on pacing correctly.   Based on these splits, I clearly need it:  
Target pace 8:31
My Splits:
8:29
8:17
7:50
8:20
8:24
8:29
8:29 
I'm pretty sure that in this case, faster isn't better.   Really need to work on this. 

This week is a fall back week, followed by my third 20 miler week and then the taper officially begins.   yay!