Need For Speed

My test run of the Lil' Rhody Runaround course last Sunday had been on my mind.  I felt with my training this year that I should be faster than ever.  Why then was my run so slow?  Maybe I'm faster on roads and easy trails (where I do most of my training), but so so on technical stuff.  Maybe I'm not faster at all.  Maybe last fall was my best effort, and as I near 35, it'll all be downhill from here....

Or, maybe I had a subpar day, because on Friday I set my PR and the CR (for me and my coworkers) on our Ryan Park trail loop (7 miles).  Dan texted me in the morning to get ready to run for the record on the loop today.  We hadn't talked about this at work, so I wasn't sure how I felt about it.  I responded that it seemed like a good plan.  He told me to get pumped.  After a couple of planned and unplanned days off, my body felt ready to run.  The weather was decent - 76 degrees, but not too humid.  With a half day of work before a long weekend, we hit the trail at 1PM.  The plan was to run as hard as we could, and to run our own race (well that's what it felt like -a race).  Our pace was quick, but comfortable.  I asked Dan what his Garmin said our pace was - 6:30 - so we were probably going faster.  It was hot in the fields with full sun exposure.  During the second mile it definitely seemed like we slowed down, and I was questioning if it was simply too hot for this endeavor today.  Returning to the woods, it felt much cooler, and I kept up the fast pace.  I was a little ahead of Dan which I knew was a good sign for me - he is always leading me in the early miles.  Time check at Garmin's 3 mile mark (which is wrong) and my time was around 20:30 - fastest I had remembered.  By the half way point, the mental battle started, especially running through the thick grass of the athletic fields.  I felt slow as I attacked the technical and then hilly section.  Not too far left to go.  I tried to pick up the pace on the long straight away on the old trestle trail, and then finished with everything I had left.  I stopped my watch and checked my time - 46:49 - destroying my old record of 47:30 I did the end of October last year (in optimal weather and when I was in top shape).  Dan finished up soon after, and was very complimentary on my run.  It made me feel alot better about my ability. 

Tuesday night I ran the hilly road loop around my house.  I wanted to do a longer run, but life got in the way, and I had a short window to run at night.  I wanted to do another speed workout.  It couldn't have been muggier out, so I knew this would be a good test of my fitness.  My first mile was 6:40 and I was a little disappointed, because I felt like I had given it my all.  So, I continued my effort, pushing the hills and sprinting the straight and downhill sections, but thinking that I wasn't going to be happy with the end result.  Wrong!  My time was 24:51 - one second faster than when I ran it in February.  It felt good to run this fast in the humid weather.