Bla..Bla..Bla...I'm Over it

What a difference a nice hard run and a day makes. I am over my wasted space and blog entry yesterday as I had a nice tempo run at Pineland to re-affirm that it's all about getting out on the trails and enjoying the run.

I signed up for the Barefoot 5K (shod) yesterday and honestly I got all fired up to run a 5K pretty hard. I decided to check out Pineland and see if it was actually runable.

I found a lot of snow still left where the snowpacker had groomed the trail but it was quite soft so the footing was pretty loose. The exposed areas were soft and muddy so regardless of where I planted the feet, I found softness and very little push off.

I ran into small yellow signs at almost every intersection that said wrong way.....I assume it had something to do with the skiers......yet it seemed like every way was the wrong way.

I paid little attention to the signs and ran the "supposingly" 5k loop in the normal racing direction. Now I say 5k loop but honestly I always thought it was a bit longer than 3.1 miles. My garmen read 3.33 miles and it being an old 301 that always reads short unless I am running on the open road in pure sunlight, I feel this is surely a 5K++. For the purpose of not bursting my "time trial" bubble,I called it 3.4 miles for today's run.

I put a lot of effort into this run and my heart rate max of 160-163 peaks on each mile, shows that to be true. The total time and mile pace doesn't reflect the effort I put in, I assume because of the soft terrain. In the normal packed conditions, I expect today's run would have been in the 9 minute pace range.

I really enjoyed the "speed" run and again was quite impressed with the X-Talon 212s. They were comfortable, had plenty of grip and just plain felt like they belonged on my feet. I can't wait to try this route with the MT10 Minimus.

In regards to yesterdays entry, I am just going to continue to get in all the planned runs I can and see how things play out for the Pineland Challenge Festival.
Right now, I am signed up for the 5k barefoot and the 25k race, if I feel qualified, I may step up on race day......we will see.

Pineland 5K

3.4 miles @36:10 (10:39 pace)

10:37......146-160
10:21......146-155
12:13......151-162
9:01......159-163