Slowly Getting Faster

I went out today around 3pm.  I don't know why I thought this was a good idea but it clearly wasn't. when I left the house it was 86 degrees.  That is the hottest temperature I've run through in quite some time, so that was bad enough.  But it got worse because the temperature hadn't finished climbing.  It was 88 by the time I got back. The heat coupled with the sun beating down on me and the trail, and trail reflecting that heat back up into my face, made it almost unbearable.  I know 88 isn't that hot in the grande scheme of things, but I wasn't ready for it today.  

My initial plan was to run the loop but after talking myself into pushing to the top I decided that the best course of action would be to just go back the shortest route.  I was already out of water and it was hot. So I dropped back down the south side and took the short cut down to 200 south and back to the school where I had parked my car.

The days of running this route in the middle of the day are gone.  Time to start getting out early before it gets hot.  

Flag Rock run with MattVH.  This is my fastest time so far-which is the good news-but it still isn't fast enough-which is the bad news. I made it to the rock in 46 minutes, which is as fast as I've ever done it I think.  There were a couple of trail crew guys on the rock when I got up there so I stopped to ask them a few questions about the run last year.  Turns out that the fastest time last year was 1:05.  That is ridiculous! I ran it in 1:20:57 today.  After reviewing my Garmin data I can see a couple places that I slowed down today that I wouldn't have slowed down on race day, so I think I could take a few minutes off that time right now if I pushed. That said, it is going to require a lot of work between now and July 14 to get the time down around 1:05 but I think it's possible. 

This run started out slow but ended up fast.  Some of the slow was because I was still a bit tired and some of it was because MattVH wasn't feeling it today.  I was almost 40 seconds slower on the first mile, 1 minute 8 seconds slower on the second mile, 6 seconds slower on the third mile, and 1 minute 16 seconds slower on the fourth mile.  The fourth mile was all on me.  I just wasn't as fast up those switchbacks today, which was alright because this wasn't intended to be a fast run.  My plan when I woke up this morning was just try and get the hills in and don't slow down too much.  So I guess this was on track. 

I reached the peak in 48 minutes and 38 seconds, which is 2 minutes and 20 seconds slower than yesterday.  But when I got up there and realized I was only 2 minutes off my time yesterday I wondered if I could push the rest of the way and get back around the same time.  Turns out I could.  Mile 5 today was 26 seconds faster than yesterday, mile 6 was 1 minute 17 seconds faster than yesterday, and mile 7 was 33 seconds faster than yesterday.  I got back to the start in 1:21:34, which was only 36 seconds slower than yesterdays time after starting out with more than a 2 minute deficit.  Not too shabby.  

I realized yesterday that there were a few places on the second half that I was slower than I needed to be and I think that is where I made up the difference.  Instead of slowing down at the bottom of the trail I pushed up to the BST connector.  Instead of slowing down once I hit the grass at the pond I pushed the pace.  I think there were a few places that with a little more mental discipline I could push harder and get another 30 seconds or a minute at my current fitness level.  If I had been as fast going up today as I was yesterday I would have taken almost 2 minutes off my PR.  I'm a bit more optimistic about my ability to get my time down to 1:05 after today.  

I was tired this morning.  The alarm went off and I rolled over and slept for another 10 minutes.  It's harder to get up when I know I am running alone.  If it wasn't for the heat I would have just gone back to bed and done this later in the day.  But it is too hot for that at this point. 

My delay in waking up meant I didn't have enough time to get all the way to flag rock.  I got to the start line of the race course and realized that I was going to have to run it at least as fast as I did yesterday in order to be home on time.   But like I said at the outset, I was very tired and, consequently, that wasn't going to happen.  I opted instead for a shorter easier route.  Wanting to get some of the hills in still I decided I would head up cemetery hill and cut across the fire break to farmington canyon, come down the canyon, go through the pond, cut across the lagoon trail and back to my car.  Turns out that is a little over 6 miles, according to Gmap-pedometer. I forgot my watch.  I'm too type A about my running to be forgetting my watch. 

I tried to just keep the pace.  I figured that today should be a recovery run because the last two days have been decent efforts. I managed to do the course in just over 10 minute miles, which I think is a good recovery run pace. I think tomorrow I might try a double loop on the race course up to Flag Rock.  hopefully I wont be as tired then.  

Yesterday I thought I would do a double loop on the Flag Rock Race course.  Last night I found out that we were tending a bunch of little girls over night and my wife needed me to watch them so she could go get a hair cut.  Consequently, my plans were not to be. Instead I just did a single loop, which in the end was probably the best because I was done by the end.  My exhaustion had me a little frustrated, because I couldn't figure out why I was so tired.  I slept well last night, I ate before I ran today.  I didn't get up as early (thanks to the little girls), so what gives?  As it turns out, the reason for my exhaustion was my speed up to the top.  While my overall time was 2 minutes slower than my fastest time on this route, I beat my time to the top by about 10 seconds. Most of that speed came in the third mile, a mile that is usually an 18 minute mile because there is just under 800' of elevation gain in that mile.  Today I managed to get that mile done in 16:57, 1 minute and 9 seconds faster than my fastest time.  I lost most of that back on the final switchbacks up to the top, but I am pretty happy with that speed. My first and second miles were faster too, but the speed difference isn't quite as dramatic. In the end, today was a good sign for my goal of 1:05 by july 14.