YEEEEEHAAAWWW!!!!!! Sorry for all the exuberance but I guess I'm still under the influence of the endorphines that the running powers-that-be were so kind to inject into my system this morning for the Payson canyon downhill run. It's been a little while since I've had a great run like this so I was pretty "chuffed" (word I learnt from Ian). We had a good size crew today, I think we packed 14 or 15 folks all in a single Suburban up the canyon. Plan was to run with the group for 2 miles then 4 miles tempo run at downhill 1/2 marathon pace, then rest/jog for 1/2 mile then do 4 more miles at HMP. Tyler S was being the good husband watching the kids so his wife Kellie could experiences the joys of canyon downhill running. Good for him, however it did mean I would be solo for the tempo miles. I tried to focus on good downhill form and just relaxing and let the legs "roll" down the hill without braking. A little scary to run like this as you feel like you're on the verge of being out of control, but also quite euphoric to run fast without feeling so winded. I was very surprised to see my pace in the 5:30-5:45 range for most of these miles while I would have guessed my pace to be closer to 6:00. With all the downhill miles I've put in the last month or so and my legs being hardly sore after Hobble Creek Saturday, I felt OK taking a little risk and pushing the pace. Hope my legs forgive me the next couple of days and I can recover adequately for the 22 miler on Saturday. After I got to the bottom I ran back up a ways to find Kim and Kellie and run back down with them to get to 13 miles for the day.
Here are the splits for the tempo miles: 1 - 5:01 (this is wrong, garmin glitched on this mile, should be in the 5:45-6:00 range I think) 2 - 5:29 3 - 5:46 4 - 5:29 Jog/rest for about .4 miles plus a VPB, about 5 minutes total rest time. 5 - 5:55 6 - 6:18 (this mile is the flattest of the bunch but still net downhill. Started getting nausea and GI problems and thought I might have to cut the run short and have another VPB but luckily the feeling past before the end of the mile. 7 - 6:07 8 - 6:07 Now lest anyone thing I've magically improved my 1/2 marathon pace in the last few days by over 30 seconds a mile I need to remind everyone that Payson Canyon is a dang steep downhill canyon, especially the first two-thirds of the run, then the last 4 miles are more gradual downhill with some rollers. Just to remind myself and anyone else interested what kind of downhill slope we're talking about I'm posting the elevation info from the Course Tool below. The first 4 miles of my tempo run today correspond with miles 3-6, the last 4 miles covered miles 6.5 thru 10.5.
| Course Analysis Data |
|---|
| Actual course length: 11.0764 miles |
| Course length equivalent: 10.3472 miles |
| Lowest point: 4689 ft |
| Highest point: 7494 ft |
| Total elevation gain: 193.77 ft |
| Total elevation loss: 2998.72 ft |
| Net elevaion loss(+)/gain(-): 2804.95 |
| Estimated Pace: 6:00 per mile |
| Estimated Flat Pace: 6:25 per mile |
| Splits |
|---|
| Distance (miles) | Elevation | Avg. Grade from Last (%) |
Split Time |
Total Time |
| 0 |
7494 |
N/A |
N/A |
0:00 |
| 1 |
7097 |
-7.51 |
5:42 |
5:42 |
| 2 |
6755 |
-6.48 |
5:57 |
11:40 |
| 3 |
6414 |
-6.46 |
5:51 |
17:32 |
| 4 |
6036 |
-7.16 |
5:56 |
23:28 |
| 5 |
5748 |
-5.45 |
6:08 |
29:37 |
| 6 |
5485 |
-4.99 |
6:02 |
35:39 |
| 7 |
5216 |
-5.09 |
5:56 |
41:36 |
| 8 |
5077 |
-2.65 |
6:03 |
47:39 |
| 9 |
4959 |
-2.23 |
6:13 |
53:52 |
| 10 |
4813 |
-2.75 |
6:06 |
59:59 |
| 11 |
4701 |
-2.12 |
6:03 |
1:06:03 |
| 11.0764 |
4689 |
-3.14 |
0:26 |
1:06:30 |
No more miles for me today, looking forward to a big nap at lunch time.
| 