Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Last night...

(It's hard to have a "bad" run when this is the location)

-----------------------------------------------

Last nights run turned out to be great! Although I felt like my pace was far too slow and mentally I was beating myself up over it, when I gothome and checked the numbers I was pleasantly surprised!

I hit the road around 4:2opm-ish and right away I wasn't 'feeling it', the route's first 1/4 mile is up hill and I was feeling tired midway up. I could tell my pace was too quick at that point and attempted to slow down a bit while at the same time trying to stay near 180 strides per minute, turns out, this is a bit harder than it sounds.

By the time I hit California Ave. I thought I had slowed too much and had basically resigned to the idea that 180 strides per minute is something I would work on as the weeks went by but this was not the time.

I got a short boost in attitude shortly after the first mile by a kindly (very) old man who's simple "...nice day for it" comment as I ran by made me smile and send my thoughts to "I love West Seattle" land...

When I hit Lincoln Park I got another mental push as I ran by all the folks in their cars waiting for the Vashon ferry, there's something great about seeing people stuck in traffic as I run by, I don't know, I guess I'm usually just pretty thrilled it's not me.

The stretch from Lincoln on to Beach Drive was pretty uneventful, just movin' right along.

I chugged my way up Jacobsen Rd. SW, which happens to be a fairly large hill, went on to SW Hudson St. and hung a left when I hit 47th Ave. As usual, I sprinted the final block, the stretch between Oregon St and Genesee, hit my stop watch, took a peak at my time, and walked the remaining block back home as a cool down. After stretching and a quick chat with a friendly neighbor I headed inside to the computer to dissect my time....

I was pretty thrilled to see that my final of 51:29 meant that I had run an avg. of a 7:28 mile, 2 seconds faster than my goal despite feeling as though I was running about 30 seconds slower than it.

Based of my (internet generated) training plan,which I will eventually post, today is supposed to be a rest day though I think I may head out for a quick 3 miles or so and see what kinda time I can clock at a shorted distance.... we'll see though.

No comments: