Towne Place Suites 6.5 Miler (Bloomington, IN)

With just a little over a month to go to get ready for the New York City Marathon, I've kind of been doubting my preparations. Last year, I knew heading into the Marine Corps Marathon (my first) that I didn't really have all of the "long run" miles in that I really needed to and it showed a little bit. My quads cramped in the heat and I was forced to walk a good bit of the last 10K and waste a good 4:02 effort through the first 20 miles.

Last week, I was just not emotionally motivated to do any training (and take advantage of cooler temperatures) and I almost fell victim to that Monday night as I ate dinner late and nearly tried to tell myself that I'd get up in the morning and do it. Yeah right! So at 11:15 p.m., I headed out to hit the roads of Bloomington, Indiana.

I embarked out on the same course that I did a few weeks ago. It was one that I measured using the tool on the HARRA web site to be 6.498 miles (so, let's just call it 6.5 miles). [If you want to see the route, it is listed with the same name as what is in this title.]

What you won't be able to see was that this was a hilly course and when I used the elevation part of the HARRA tool, I found that the front half of the course had apprxomiately a 120-foot elevation drop (867 feet above sea level to 747 feet) while the return had the same net gain.

3.242 miles out - 34:07.84 - 120-foot drop - 10:32/mile
3.256 miles back - 35:43.79 - 120-foot gain - 10:58/mile

(September 26th, Bloomington, IN)
6.498 miles total - 1:09:51.63 - 10:45/mile
(September 17th, San Marcos, TX, Country Roads 10K)
6.2 miles - 1:04:42 - 10:26/mile

I'm not putting a whole heck of a lot of stock in that comparison because one was a race and the other was just getting the miles in (although I did take advantage of it being cooler Monday evening, which should make it easier to run in).