Doug's Running Thingy

From the track down and around Lake Overstreet clockwise.  Middle 2 miles right at 7:30 pace.  Felt really good this morning, but didn't press any harder than the fairly comfortable 7:30 pace.  Will do a hard interval workout tomorrow on the trails.  Decided to run a 6K race on the FSU XC course this Saturday.  Should be fun.

Upper 40s, crisp and clear for the run this morning - nice.  Started at the gardens trailhead and did ravine trail for warm up - on hindsight, just over 3 miles may have been a bit too much warmup for me.  Once I made it to the relatively flat Lake Overstreet loop, I did 6X 2 min on 1 min off.  First three were between 6:30 and 6:20 pace, but I backed off a bit on next two (6:35 pace) so I could finish strong on the slightly uphill final rep.  I hit 5:55 pace on that one and was pleased with the effort - pleasantly spent.  Just under a half mile back to the jeep real easy.

A little tempo this morning on the "2-mile loop" aka the ravine trail.  Ran easy from the track and once around the loop (8:11 pace), then worked it pretty good for the second 1.7 mile lap (7:09 pace).  Finished up easy back to the school and around the track once.

Very enjoyable inaugural 6K trail race this morning on the Apalachee Regional Park cross country playground.  Its a dedicated running trail with a main loop of a bit over 1.5 miles.  FSU XC teams race here at 5K, 6K, 8K and 10K, and the high schoolers use it during XC season as well for a few 5K meets.  I started out with the intention of going 4 min per K and even switched my Garmin over to metric to monitor my progress.  Well, I poorly managed my warmup/porta potty timing and didn't have time to head to the car to switch into my racing flats... more tragically, I failed to double tie the laces on my trainers and, at a bit shy of the first K, my left shoe came untied.  I was exactly on pace, but after tying my left shoe and retying my right to be safe, I found myself in a pack of a few guys I know and we just kinda cruised around the trail enjoying the morning.  Travis and Lisa also ran.  Trav wanted to just go out easy and negative split - he ran 22:17 for 12th and was pleased with that.  Lisa, in her 4th race ever, averaged under 12 minutes per mile and defeated nearly 20 of the 175 racers!  Very impressed and proud of her jumping into this silly running thing.