27.3km Hills run in refreshing rain

Saturday 26th May; Ran about 27.3km in 2hours 55min 34. Heart rate 132 at end, splits; 1.22/1.33. (Average speed 6.30 per km) Darlington to Sawyers Rd and back.

Started off with a group from Hills training group, who mostly wanted a good paced 19km. Decided that the C-team was moving a bit too slow for me today, with my plans for a shorter long run, given my hopes to race the Challenge 10k tomorrow.
Was kind of in two minds but figured it would be good to try and stay with the faster group. The pace was just under 6 minutes per km, not race pace, but demanding enough to make me work a bit to stay with it. We ran in a tight group of 6 runners for 9.5km all the way to Mundaring, with one drinks/toilet stop, and still arrived in 56 minutes, which suggests we were running around 5.40-5.50 per km.
It was a good group with some interesting conversations, one guy plans a 80km ultra run in Canada, another is a veteran of several six foot 45km ultras in the Blue Mountains of NSW...

At Mundaring 4 of the group headed back to Darlington, while myself and one of the regulars, "sm" who is also planning a good Perth Marathon under 3.30 this year continued on for a bit more distance. Sm was planning to do 32km, while I was tossing up between 22km and 27km. The rain started to get a bit heavier then, and this pattern of light and slightly heavier rain continued for the next 2 hours. By the end it was getting a little muddy on the gravel trail...
Body core heat was being maintained though as we continued at around 6minutes per km. Beautiful bush the occasional good view of the hills, invigorating rain, birdlife, the occasional local walking their dog, or mountainbiker. It was just so nice out there on the trail. Thanked God a few times for the opportunity to be out there in this beautiful place a few times. ahhhh the excellence of trail running...

Talked about perth marathon prep with sm until at Sawyers Rd, I decided to head back towards Darlington. Hit this point in 1hour 22minutes 27seconds which is about 6min 04 per km average speed, despite two stops...so I reckon I ran consistently under 6 minutes per km for the first 13.5km. One the way back I slowed up a bit, as I was now on my own, so not being "pulled along" by other runners, plus mindful of the plans to race tomorrow I did not want to keep cranking out the sub 6 min km's, just wanted to take it relatively easy and enjoy the run back. Seemed to be running through the middle of low altitude clouds around Mundaring, which was quite surreal and very cool! Saw 4 survivors (the usual suspects of JE,SB,and JS) plus C? in a tight group of 4 heading towards their planned 32km not long after I started heading back....Looked like they had settled into a faster rhythm than they started with...looked like they were going well.

Wanted to get around 7 minutes per km, and my downhill split of 1hr 34 (with one rather long 8 minute drink stop where I got small gravel pebbles out of my shoes (very important when its persistently raining to avoid blisters and reduce annoying pain)) has an average speed of 6min 53 per km, which is in the guilt-producingly easy zone...IE OD (Overdistance) intensity zone of long run training...My end heart rate of 132 is just low enough to not really be a faster long run, and nowhere near race pace intensity. I was also mindful of my run on this identical course last year in September(see here), where I did 3 hours 4min, so was keen to try and dip under 3 hours which I did. Enjoyable run which consolidates the 42km I did 2 weeks ago, and just need a couple more good long runs and I will be quite well prepared on the endurance side of things for the Perth Marathon. Then its just finetuning fitness and intensity/speed through lots of reps, and a few races...