A.M. Started the run with Jeff and Daniel. Daniel went to 3.5 then turned around. After a while I started messing around with landing technique trying to see what happens if I consciously tried to power the muscles harder in the early ground contact phase. The result was that we started running the easy not easy 6:40 pace. The breathing was not affected due to the slowness of the pace, but I could definitely tell I had to focus more - surprise, surprise. I was fed up with that and decided to test this at a faster pace to see what differences I would observe. So we ran a 600 in 2:01 (5:23 pace). Legs felt stale from the 5 K on Saturday, otherwise the pace felt good. At a faster pace I felt I could push in the early ground phase any harder that my natural push at that pace. So I would have to say the experiments were inconclusive. Dropped Jeff off at 10.1, and ran back to meet Sarah on the trail. Figured that since I'd be running slower with her it would be OK to run fast until I meet her, and that way I would get to meet her sooner as well. This time I felt different, I really liked the feeling in my feet. The strike felt lighter. I think there is a bit of a paradox. The harder you push into the ground right away the lighter it is going to feel because it reduces the time on the ground and there is not enough time for the mind to register the full burden of body weight on the foot and the leg. So maybe my experiments did produce some results after all. I did not know how far I was going, but I figured I'd meet Sarah around 2 miles into the tempo. Ran the first 0.5 evenly in 2:50 (5:40 pace), then hit a 1:19 quarter on the downhill on the trail, slowed down to 1:23 with turns and bridges (5:32 at the mile), then ran the next mile in 5:26, 10:58 for 2 miles. Felt staleness in the legs, but surprisingly was holding pace OK without too much struggle. Saw Sarah about 100 meters before the 2 mile mark, so I had to do a 200 meter pickup on the way back to catch her after jogging a bit. Ran home with her, then added another mile. Total time for 15.1 was 1:54:46. P.M. 1 with Julia in 11:16, 1.5 with Jenny in 12:19, she closed with a 7:50 mile, 2 with Benjamin in 14:58, last mile in 7:08, got chased by a small dog at the end, 0.7 alone in 4:46.
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