Nan posted a really nice report here of her race at the Cross Country Club Nationals last weekend.
Was going to head to the track this morning...but Bryce's post knocked some sense into me and made me realize it would be a LOT more fun to do a fast run through the hills on the trails than running in circles on a flat track. It was a good decision...it was fun to run those trails fast for a change.
I decided to do the exact same loop as I had done yesterday and see how much faster I could do it. Yesterday I was purposely going really slow, and I thoroughly enjoyed the leisurely pace.
Today I did the same seven mile loop in about 28 minutes faster. Whoa! I must have either been pathetically slow yesterday (yes), or really fast today (by my own standards, yes, not by many others I'm sure). I did cut out 60 feet of vertical today though by bypassing one hill by the cemetary. That would have added a minute or so to the time I bet.
I did the 7 mile loop today in 51:10 - 7:19/mile avg - 1025' vertical - 162 HR avg - I felt really strong, and feel pretty dang good about that effort, since that is faster than I usually run a flat 7 miles. But I was definitely pushing hard from about mile 1.5 on.
Yesterday my time was 1:19 - about 11:17 avg/mile with 1085' vertical.
Here's the profile of the course, its a pretty nice little course with a 1 mile flat warmup to the trail, then up for 2 miles, and mostly down for the rest with a couple minor hills toward the end. I ran up skunk canyon, across the mesa trail, and down McClintock trail.
Did 2.5 miles afterward to cool down bringing the total for the day to 9.5 miles and 1150' vertical.
I think I'll do easy running the rest of the week to save some energy for Chubby Cheeks this weekend.
