Another early morning tempo run this morning. We were meeting at 5:20 so that Keith could run with us. Ironically, Keith overslept and could not make it this morning, so we'll all give him some grief next time we see him. When I rolled out of bed at 4:45 this morning I felt a bit fumbly although I thought I was doing a pretty good job keeping down the noise. It turns out I did not receive very high marks on that from Jenny, although part of it is not completely my fault. Sammy (the dog) has this habit of flinging open the door very wide and exposing the bedroom to the light and noise of me getting ready. So, we met up at the Y. It was Nelson, Randall, Dixie, Raj, two of Raj's friends, and myself. We started out nice and easy for the first 1.5 miles, crossed Mitchell Blvd. then started the tempo. First mile felt pretty good, second mile still felt strong, for the third mile I looked forward to finishing it so I could count down the last mile, and the last mile came in a little bit faster. Splits were: 7:04, 6:57, 6:59, and 6:52 Slowed back down for the return trip. After the tempo portion I had a sudden sense of urgency and had some worries about not making it back in time (this might have been due to the gel I took at the start of the run combined with a smaller than usual prerun snack), but I was able to think of something else and made it back ok.I was pretty happy with this run because I did almost exactly what
was planned and got to run with some friends. However, part of me is
thinking how was I able to do 7 miles at 6:49 pace this past summer?
Today's run certainly didn't feel easy. I'm not sure what level of
fitness I would need to be at to make today's run feel easier. At the
same time I also realize that just because 4 miles at this pace didn't
feel easy doesn't mean that 7 or 8 miles at this pace would be any
harder.
Average pace for entire run: 7:55
Went inside and did a little bit of cross training cardio and weights.
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