AM - 4 miles easy. PM - I needed to do something fast today, and had planned a low-stress tempo but a series of events kept me from it earlier in the evening. I swung by the indoor track a little after midnight to see if anyone would let me in, and as luck would have it, one of the student janitors did, bless her heart. I warmed up about a mile when an authority figure showed up and kicked me out. Apparently if you get permission from the coaches, though, you can train any time you want. I'll have to see if I can talk one of the coaches into it.... that would be awesome! Anyway, I hit the street in my shorts and T-shirt and decided to do a quick and easy tempo, something up-pace just to get my legs moving and keep them from going stale. I ran up Canyon Road about 2 miles and turned around to tempo it back to my car. It was freezing, but it felt great to get into the rythm of it. My legs felt great. I don't know my pace, but it was downhill, so I'd be a little surprised if it was slower than 5:20. I used the downhill to get a good turnover rate going in my legs, picturing the race in my mind. I'm a big believer in visualization, and I tend to think through races repeatedly before they actually happen. My racing skills are a little rusty, so if I go through it in my mind, it gets me ready for the real thing. I measured the route with gmap-pedometer and found it to be about 1.92 miles..... meaning that my pace was about 5:55/mile. I've always believed this tool before, but I have a hard time stomaching that number - I swear up and down I was doing at least 5:25 pace the whole way. Maybe because of the cold and dark I felt like I was going faster. Anyway, not really a big deal, but to my OCD it is. It's driving me crazy.
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