AM: Had a hard time getting to sleep last night, not sure why. Wasn't so excited to get up at 4:25. Kim and I ran the Payson canyon downhill run. We were going to run this one Thursday but then we found out a group was running today so we volunteered our van as the transport vehicle and Neldon drove our van back down to Pateetneet (his knees are bad so he does and up/down run instead of all down). Pretty good size group, I think we packed 10 or 11 runners in the van. After a slow warmup mile I sped up a bit and did the rest solo as nobody else wanted to push the pace much. I had a stopwatch but no garmin so I just ran what felt comfortable and resisted the urge to speed up since this is the first time doing the all downhill run. I think most miles were in the 6:30-6:45 range. As the miles felt easy I'm counting most of them as easy despite the faster pace. There may have been a couple in there that felt like marathon pace. I'm feeling really good right now but I'll wait for tomorrow before getting very excited. If all goes well next time I'll remember the garmin and try running more 6-6:30 pace miles since this is the range I'll need to run most the downhill miles at SGM.
This run is pretty steep in spots and a bit risky as far as potential for injury, but if you can survive running if a few times before SGM it makes a big difference as far as being able to push the downhills good all the way to end without completely trashing your legs. The next day you are also the envy of the post-race runners at the hotel as you prance down the stairs while most other runners do the infamous SG-shuffle step. Total time 1:15:00. Ave pace 6:45. PM: Ran 3 miles real easy pace at work. Can feel tightness in the ankle/calf/shin area from the downhill but so far not too bad. Ave pace 8:47.
RHR 47
| 