13.1 miles at Birthday Pace

Saturday 13.10 miles/2:00:00/9:10 average pace

There are several things about this run that make me very happy. First, I got to see Maritza in action, running her training group and cheering for all the participants. They have such a positive vibe going on there, you can't help but feel good around them! So many hard working women, training for a good cause. Very cool. So the run was at the Berkeley Marina, and it was really great to run somewhere new and interesting! The view of the city and the Golden Gate was awesome, although the stretch alongside the freeway was slightly less awesome. But all in all, a very cool route! It was going to be a 12-miler, but I made a couple of my usual diversions (NO, I did not get lost! How could you think that??) and decided to do 13.1.

Which brings me to the 2nd cool thing about this run- due to the distance, I've stumbled across the first annual Birthday Eve Half Marathon! And I won it!!! :P

Another neat thing is that my time was exactly 2 hours. Crazy!

And finally, as noted in the title of this post, the run ended up at an average pace of 9:10, as in 9/10: September 10th. Yes, Birthday Pace. Only I could achieve such a randomly spectacular feat! And it wasn't even on purpose!


Well, my Birthday week was a great one, and a success running-wise.
TOTAL miles for the week: 24.75 miles.


Tomorrow officially begins my 12 week training program for the California International Marathon! I'm going to use the Pfitzinger 12 week/55 miles per week (peak mileage) plan. It sounds like a sonofabitch, but I'll give it a shot. :)