Heading into the last week before my marathon, I had one more race on the calendar. Beth and I had registered for this 4-miler months ago and we even found some nice patriotic outfits to wear for the big event. Since it was a short run, we met up at the midtown Run For Your Life store and did about 1.5 miles to the race (and then back again afterwards) to make a 7-mile training run for the day.

• Mile 1 – 13:01 (crossing roads and figuring out the best way to get to the start line)
• Mile 2 – 11:18
• Mie 3 – 10:46
• Mile 4 – 11:19
• Mile 5 – 10:46
• Mile 6 – 10:19
• Mile 7 – 13:58 (crossing more roads and waiting at stop lights)

There was a good crowd for this race, with a lot of Beth’s running group doing the run, so we met up with them before the race and then ran with the group that does the run / walk plan. Virtually all of us were using this race as a fun run, so we just chatted and had a fun time waving at people and cheering on the other runners. 

Official time: 42:50

This was my last run before the Grandfather Mountain Marathon, and even though it was 7 miles broken up into segments, it was really a mental boost. I struggled a lot in this training cycle, so to have a run over 5 miles where I felt good the entire time was something I was really excited about. The last time I could say I felt good the entire time through a run over 5 miles was back in mid-May.