Fastest Training Run for Marathon

Today I ran another sixteen miles in Valley Forge National Park.  The temperature was in the 35 degree range when I woke up this morning so I didn't go running until late morning.  By then it had warmed up to 48 degrees.  I need to figure out what to wear when the weather is chilly since late November in Philadelphia could be very chilly.  Today was my fastest run yet.  I'm not sure why I ran so well today, maybe the cooler weather actually helped my running. 

I setup my watch to report my split time every mile.  I started out pretty fast and ran high seven low eight minute pace until mile eleven.  From eleven miles onward I slowed down to nine minute miles.  My overall pace for the sixteen miles was good but slowing down after eleven miles doesn't bode well for a marathon race.  I really need to work on running slower in the first half of the race and faster in the second half.

Today I passed a runner who was wearing the orange t-shirt of the 2012 Nation's Triathlon.  In our brief encounter he said he was also registered for the 2013 Nation's Triathlon.  As I always do, I asked his age and found out he was not in my age group.