Wow, killer day. I did the 12:00 TM test. Last July '09 I did 1.56mi (7:41 AP). Today I did 1.71mi (7:01 AP)! I missed a sub 7:00 by so little! I was almost FAST! They calculated my VO2 Max to be 50.1 I think. I knew I wanted to do a sub 7:15 for the whole time if I could. I started out at 7:30 (8.0mph) and in about 2 min had increased it to 6:59 (8.6mph). I held that until the last couple of minutes and started to creep up to my finishing pace at 6:31 (9.2mph). Holy crap that was fast! I was in an all-out sprint! I could see sparks starting to come off the TM. It's a good thing the test stopped at 12:00 or they would have lost a very expensive machine! (NOT!) There were 3 other dudes doing the test. One younger than me (33), one my same age (39) and one slightly older. The 33 yo did 1.75, the 39yo did 2.03, and the older dude did 1.97. The older dude had done 1.77 about 4 months ago. So, I'm the "slowest" of the group, but the older dude had a 10k PR of 48:30 or so and mine is 50:00, so we're not that far off. The other 39yo just set it at 10mph and then kicked it some at the end. Show off. lol After the test, we stretched, did some core work and talked about our pacings they worked up based on our VO2 Max, age, etc. So, I'm pretty happy with the test. Their paces have got to be off, though. They're saying long/recovery runs (60-70% of VO2) should be 8:30-8:20. I usually run them about 8:40-9:00. 70-80% was 7:15-7:20, and the 80-90% was like 6:20 I think. 100% would be 400s at 90 sec or below. I can add some race results into the equation to get more accurate numbers. It's something to shoot for. I got home and had to take my daughter to her activities at the church tonight, so I took that opportunity to get a few more miles in since I knew I couldn't end the day with just 1.71 miles or I'd never meet my goal. I noticed on the way to the church that there's the Tree of Life Memorial Park that I've never noticed before. Figuring it would have parking off the busy street, not to mention running amongst the dead, I set my heart on running there. I was slightly disappointed as there weren't as many graves as I had expected and there wasn't any parking. There was one big freakin' tree in the middle, though. It was only about .30mi around the whole park "street", so I parked at the new development right next to it. Then I ran through the park, down through the development (rolling hills) and back to the car. It was just over a mile. I sprinted the hills. I walked for a couple of minutes after the first two "laps." The first was really fast at a 7:30 AP, then the next at about a 7:55 AP. I really wanted to do a final lap, but I was draggin' hard. So, I took that as a sign that I needed to run two laps just around the park and call it a night. I think the dead were bored and needed company.
I'm beat tonight. It was a serious "quality workout" today! I took a picture of the actual tree, but I don't think it wanted to be photographed since it kept moving when I tried to take a picture. ;-) I was too tired to look for the secret stream flowing from the tree. :-(
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