Freethinker ~ Freerunner

I had a great run today in a nice 32 degree, blue sky environment.  I felt really good throughout.  My goal pace was set at 9:07 with a distance of 9 miles.  

That was slightly interrupted by a fellow cyclist whom I crossed paths with during my final two miles.  I was slightly startled when I came upon him because he was walking his bike and clutching his left arm.  He spoke something to me as I passed so naturally I stopped and removed my headphones.  He told me that he thought he had broken his arm and wanted me to help him get back to his car.  I asked him where his car was located, to which he responded that it was at the trail head.  I asked if that was the parking lot at 101st street and he said that it was.  I asked him if he could make it that far and he asked me how far that was.  I told him it was over a mile from where we were.  At about this point I realized that even if I could get him to his car, or run the 15 or so minutes back to my house and come back with my car to pick him up that he was in no condition to drive.  So I decided to call an ambulance.  I walked him about 400 feet up a hill to the nearest main street off the trail and we waited another 5 or 10 minutes for the ambulance.  When it arrived I waited about another 5 or 10 minutes for the medics to load the cyclist at which point I asked them if they could transport his bike to wherever it was they were taking him. Luckily a fire truck had also been dispatched so they did offer to take the bike after the realized that I was not a friend, but only a passerby.  

This will go down as one of my more eventful runs for sure.  I'm glad for the cyclists sake that I always run with my cell phone.

I was only supposed to run 6 miles at a 9:07 pace today as part of my training.  I ended up tacking on an extra 2 miles and by the time I got home I had run an 8:36 pace.  The temperature was 38 degrees starting out and 33 at the end.  The sun had just set as I finished.  I checked my pulse somewhere at the start of mile 7 and it was about 160.  I felt pretty good today but it is becoming increasingly obvious that these New Balance 1225's have just about seen their last training run.  I'm looking forward to speed training on Thursday.  

I did a little speed training tonight at the local high school track.  My schedule had me down for 5 miles broken down into the following:

1 warm up mile, 2 x 1600 in 7:12 w/ 800 m jogs; 1 cool down mile.

I completed the first 1600 meters in 7:22, and the second 1600 meters in 7:28.  

I did not feel like I over exerted myself in the least.  I should have run a little faster to finish in under the goal time.  Part of the problem was getting used to my awesome new watch that calculates up to 12 splits and monitors my hear rate in both beats per minute and percentage of aerobic range.  

I should be feeling really good for my 14 mile long run Sunday.