Another loooong successful weekend of training.

Saturday.
Rode 68 hilly miles with 3000ft of elevation gain.
I worked on my descending a lot, every hill I could I'd drop low and hit a hard gear and accelerate through. I hit and rode 30-35 without fear, a lot . And at one point I hit 39mph!!!! Kind of scary, but nothing too bad. I also had my team captain help me out with cornering. I was able to take a few without braking in which I would have in the past....slow progress but it's something. Going to continue to work on this. The whole ride was tiring....I rode by myself from mile 43-63. Mile 48-54 I had to have a serious mental talk with myself....I was having some issues. My nutrition on the ride was good, but the day before I was caloric deficient and I think ultimately that had an effect on my ride....will not be doing that again. Mile 63ish I was riding along some guy, we were descending going to fast and missed the turn, went 1 mile out too far so we added 2 miles on to the ride, ugh...at least it wasn't hills.

Sunday
Ran the Eugene 1/2 marathon. First 1/2 marathon I've run as race but didn't use "race pace", does that make sense? I held back and kept my HR between 170-175 the whole time and tried to talk with people throughout the run, utilizing 80-85% of my energy. The goal was to hit an 8:30 pace, which is what I started with for the first 2 miles (there was over 6000 runners starting at the same time (1/2 and full marathoners), over the next 11 miles I dropped my avg time per mile at each mile I injured my left calf doing hopping/skipping drills and track on Thursday so it hurt a bit after the run but am sure it will be fine letting it rest for a few days, also ice will help. I had no taper for this race and was running off fatigue from the last few crazy days of training. I ended up coming in at 332 out of 2628 1/2 marathoners, 27 out of 268 in my age division, and 109 out of 1819 females. Finishing time was 1:45:43/ avg mile 8:05.
This peaks my curiosity into what I could have done with a taper and 100% effort...BTW I really want to do a full marathon now :D