Ran around the block with the dog, and then drove up to Hollow Rd with Logan and Cody. We ran the TOU course in reverse - 10 miles up (just past the park in Blacksmith Fork), and 10 miles down. At first we faced a nasty head wind and were averaging about 7:20/mile on the uphill, which I was actually pretty happy with, all things considered. The canyon wind died down (plus we picked it up), and our next four miles before the turnaround were averaging just under 7:00/mile pace. On the second (downhill) half, things turned into a progression run. We fooled around with 6:30s then 6:15s. Around mile 16 things got even more interesting, as the canyon wind picked up and now gave us a nice tail wind. It's like in the movie Die Hard: "Now I have a tail wind!" er... machine gun, whatever. We did a 6:07 and then a 5:54 as we came out of the canyon. I could tell Logan and I were feeding off each other a bit and simultaneously pushing the pace. We hit 5:51 as we entered Hollow Rd. Then things got crazy for some reason on Hollow Rd. Mile 19 was 5:24. Mile 20 was 5:08. This last mile is pretty much flat, plus the tailwind was gone by then, so I was pretty happy to hit that kind of split at the end of a long run and still feel in control. I wouldn't say that pace was conversational or anything (although Logan and I would grunt something to each other occasionally), but it didn't feel faster than threshold pace either. This is good, as I hope to hit sub-1:09 at Great Salt Lake Half next Saturday. We'll see. 6:38/mile average pace for the entire run. 99.5 miles for the week. I'm not ready for 100 yet. Not for a couple more weeks. (1120: 185 miles)
| 