Meagan's Ready, Achilles Acts Up

Time: 78:13
Distance: 11 miles

W/u: 23:47 for ~3 miles
W/o: 15 minutes up tempo, (3 min recovery), 6 x 3:00 (1 min.), (3:00 recovery), 20 minutes at Meagan's MP
C/d: 8:14

This morning Meagan and I drove over to the parking lot of Bull City Running Co. where the paved side American Tobacco Trail starts/ends. We had her last big pre-Houstaon Marathon workout to complete as it was 10 days out from race day. The workout involved 15 minutes of up tempo running to wake up the legs, 6 x 3 minutes hard to tire out the legs and labor the breathing and then 20 minutes of marathon paced running. Simple enough right?

Splits:
15:00 up tempo (6:35, 6:28 for the first two miles)
(3:00 rest)
4 x 3:00 (1:00 rest) *I only did four as I had to run to the Kroger bathroom and my achilles wasn't feeling great.
(11:01 combined rest as Meagan finished the last two intervals)
20:00 marathon pace 6:11, 6:11, 6:07, 1:33 for final 400m

Meagan never sounded great during the workout, but I'm unconcerned as her fitness is where it needs to be. The early miles at 6:30 pace were more labored than they should have been, but she hung tough the rest of the workout. We were coming through the 800m mark of the 3 minute intervals in about 2:50 each time. The rest was kept short on purpose so that she would feel tired at the start of the final and most important segment. It's nearly impossible to replicate the race day feel of the marathon's late miles. All one can do is learn how to run with tired legs focusing on maintaining form and pace.

My achilles was a little stiff when I woke up this morning and had this not been Meagan's final big workout, I probably would not have run as far or as hard. By the end of the run I had to cut my cool down short. The fleshy part just above the achilles is tight and bothersome. Not good, not good.