An Easy 20 Miles

As the temps are now steadily in the 100's, I'll be doing almost all of my runs on a treadmill.  I got a solid 7 hours of sleep last night.  I woke up and drank some water and then headed to the YMCA.  As I was walking up the steps to get inside the YMCA, my foot slipped off the step and I hit my knee on the ground.  I wondered if this was an omen.  The first couple of miles were okay.  My legs felt a little sluggish.  I decided to run for 6 miles at 10 minute pace and then I would try a run/walk style that I read about on Hal Higdon's site.  I couldn't remember if it was supposed to be run for 5 or 6 minutes and then walk for one minute.  I decided to do a 5:1 ratio.  I also tried the Powerbar strawberry banana gels because they were the only ones carried by Walmart.  They have a strong taste that some might not like, but I thought it was okay.  Unlike the Hammer gels I tried a few weeks ago, there were no noticeable effects.  Anyway, I maintained the 10 minute mile pace and felt good all the way through 15 miles.  I picked up the pace for miles 16-20 and felt good.  Overall, it was a good run and I'm happy with my progress so far.  I'm hoping to be able to build up to 30 miles for my long runs.  I guess I'm 2/3 of the way there.  The time for today's run was 3:19:48.