Saturday, March 9, 2013

Roads Over Sidewalks

This morning's Mount Wilson Trail Race training called for three one-mile repeats at 90-95% effort.  I got to Kersting Court about 10 minutes early, bundled up nice and warm, figuring I'd drop my wimp wear layers as the laps progressed.

The course was a loop over Sierra Madre, up Lima, back over Highland and down Baldwin to the fire hydrant. I started the first lap in a group with Elise, Marleigh, Ann, Rose and Lynn.  Marleigh, Elise and Ann slowly pulled away, but I kept them in my sights, while being hyper-vigilant to not let Rose or Lynn catch me... result 8:33.  I consider that a surprisingly good time given the route.

My group for the second lap was Rich T., Lynn and Rose, with Carrie starting just ahead of us.  I paced off of Carrie, and stayed hyper-vigilant to not let the others catch me... result 8:38.  Still a good time, but I was definitely tired.

There were no rabbits for me to chase on the next lap, just an unknown runner about 15 seconds ahead of me, and the only one behind me this time was Rose.  I was feeling pretty spent and decided to try following the runner ahead of me... who used the sidewalk up Lima, something I hadn't done before.  I was thinking it would save me a few steps, stupid I know, but I'd seen a number of runners do it in the prior rounds, so I thought it might help me stay in my quality window... I already said it was a stupid idea.  Result 8:48.  Well outside my quality window.  Had I stayed under 8:43 I would have earned a fourth lap with the intermediates, but since I didn't I packed it up and waited for Lynn to run her fourth.

While I was hanging out, I told Carrie about my route change experiment saying that it felt like it had slowed me down.  She said "absolutely, running on the sidewalk is slower than running in the street."  Damn.  Wish I'd known that in advance, but it serves me right for even attempting to cut a corner.  I know better.  (Sigh)

No comments:

Post a Comment