faster with age

    I wanted to get in some MP miles and some downhill miles to try and get a better idea of where I'm at fitness wise and how I should pace myself for the marathon saturday. I went over to Weston canyon and ran down a 3 mile stretch of the canyon. It's mostly only a 1 to 2% grade for all but about the last 600 meters that is closer to 6%. My wife and son went along to walk as far as they could get before I picked them up so they could drop me off and park the car back at the bottom again. This gave me a 4 min. break between each 3 miles run. I ran the first 3 at 6:55 pace. The next 3 at 6:45 pace and the third 3 at 6:48 pace. 6:50 pace for all 9 miles. I had good news and bad news from this run. The good is that it didn't bother my back or calf or any of the other little aches and pains that I have been dealing with from trying to rebuild running fitness to quickly. The bad is that I am way behind where I was at in July. In July I did this run and was running closer to 6:20 pace at a similar HR and effort. The worse news is that my lower hamstring got very tight right at the end. It seamed to come from the last 6% grade hill where I kind of sped up and let fly down the hill. It felt ok later after icing it so I don't think I did any damage but it tells me I better watch my pace down the hills next week. If it wasn't for the hamstring I didn't feel that tired and felt I could have gone a lot farther. Probably my biking has me in a lot better cardio shape than the shape my lack of running has my legs in.  I do have some excuses I can throw in about possibilties why the effort was hard for the pace. I did go hunting Fri night and Sat. morning and did a lot of hiking. After returning from the morning hunt I ate a whole lot of waffles shortly before running and could feel the effects the whole run. And there was also a substantial headwind the whole way. Unfortunatly I can't find a good reason why the hamstring pain might not be there next week. On the long run I did wednesday my hamstring didn't bother me at  all and I did a lot in the 7:20 to 7:25 pace range but it was more flat. I guess it was good to find this out now as it will definatly affect how I approach the race.