“Big” long run, 16.2km on crushed granite trail (rails-to-trails).
Felt really good at the start, had set a goal of 15k (which would have been fine if I’d managed my 10k during the week).
As it was this more than doubled the distance of my longest run since Aug 7, and first time over 10 miles since mid July.
Tried to stay conservative on the pace (zone 1) but pushed a little harder , then had to sprint for 500m to run with the bike riders who caught up to me on the trail. Did another couple of short zone 3 intervals before the halfway mark.
Had thought about adding on 5k to make it a half marathon (since it was the last day of the calendar month and I’d been running a half each month before I got injured). But legs and overall energy level dropped in the last couple miles so I ended on schedule and went for a bike ride instead to work out some of the soreness.
Ankle responded well (calling it 99%) and back did much better (calling it 75% recovered).
Simplified marathon training plan is now “add 8k every 8 days” to the long run with:
9/18 8k
9/30 16k
10/8 24k
10/16 32k
10/30 42.2k (race)
