Soul Builder II Team Rogue Workout

Holy moley!

Yesterday's workout: 18 miles from Gateway over to Mesa, down North Hills to Balcones, Hancock, down Shoal Creek Blvd, 38th to Jefferson, down to Enfield, west to Lake Austin Blvd.

Then the fun began. The route took us up Redbud to Westlake Drive, and turned around to take us to the dreaded Stratford Drive. Stratford spit us out into Zilker, and an out and back through Zilker brought us to the Austin High track. That was the first 18 miles. At the track, the plan was to run six more miles (for a total of 24 miles before the mile-or-so cool down back to the pool) hard at these paces to test our fitness and mental toughness and to try to simulate how you'd feel at the end of a full marathon:

2 miles at marathon goal pace (mgp) - 1:57/400m
2 miles at half marathon goal pace (hmgp) - 1:51/400m
2 miles at 10K pace - 1:46/400m

Looking at my watch, this is how I did:
Mile 1 - 1:59, 2:02, 1:59, 1:57
Mile 2 - 1:56, 1:55, 1:56, 1:56 - held mgp nicely in the first 2 miles
Mile 3 - 1:52, 1:53, 1:53, 1:54
Mile 4 - 1:50, 1:51, 1:54, 1:50 - was hovering around hmgp in the second 2 miles
Mile 5 - 1:49, 1:54, 1:53, 1:56
Mile 6 - 1:57, 2:07 (spaced on the lap button), 3:30 for my final 800m (spaced on the lap button again) - never quite got to 10K pace in the last two miles except for maybe late in my last 800 meters when I knew it was my last lap.

Somewhere in my last lap I remember thinking, "I wonder if I'll make myself barf if I keep running like this?"

By my coach's assessment on the team forum, since I couldn't quite get to 10K pace, I'd be what he's terming a "bronze" standard, as opposed to platinum or gold, and I should reassess my marathon goal of 3:25.

Hmmmm. I'm not quite ready to reassess just yet, even though that cool down jog from the track over to Barton Springs Pool was the most painful post-workout I've had in 14 years of marathon training.