10 miles along the waterfront paths in Seattle. There were a lot of sharp turns, tiny rollers, and other people to dodge, so it was hard to get a rhythm going, but I did the first 9 miles at tempo effort and then did the last mile as a cooldown. The first mile was 6:13, but I suspect it was a little bit long due to running between very tall buildings making my pace jump around a ton. The rest of the tempo portion was at an average 6:02 pace, with the last 3 miles a hair faster than the rest, all a bit under 6. So yeah, 9 miles in 54:30, but probably more like 54:20. Felt good to run hard and the pace wasn't super terrible considering that I was mostly just running hard without much of a rhythm. I haven't taken any ibuprofen to run in a few days and my hip has been pretty close to fine. I felt a very minor flareup around mile 6, but after about a minute it was gone and never came back.
I'm actually really pleased with this run in hindsight. I haven't done virtually anything of any value, fitness-wise since May, I've put on 5 pounds of upper body muscle, and if my legs were rested (ie, not after running 61 miles in 5 days after only having broken 35 in a week once in 4+ months), I could probably still bust out a 1:18 half, or there-abouts. I consider this a win and I'm really excited to see what I'll be able to do when I get back in shape.
Ok, time to go party it up with some undergrad friends that I haven't seen in 4 1/2 years!
| 