I Came This .... Close

Last night was the first track session. I planned this spring to run track to hopefully increase my speed a bit this year. I totally planned on track last year and I honestly don't remember why I didn't get there. I figured the first one is the most important as it sets the stage for continuing. So, it was on my schedule and I planned for it. First night was a mile time trial and I was pretty anxious to see where my mile time would be.

 All day I labored with the thought of running around in a circle for miles and miles. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it really isn't that enjoyable. Yeah I want to run faster but there are other ways to increase speed than track intervals.

 By the time 4:30 rolled around I had convinced myself to run something enjoyable. I scrapped the track plan and headed to Bradbury. I decided to run the connector trail from The brad to the power lines and see how the trail maintenance worked out.

 This run was so perfect and the trail was fantastic. The volunteers did a great job which made it very easy to follow. I also found the few stumps and roots that remained were quite easy to see and I actually didn't trip once.

 I worked every hill to spike the heart rate and simulate a speed workout. I felt strong right to the end and finished with a very good kick. I did notice that the return trip seemed to have more up hill and I worked much harder at times to maintain my pace.

 Even with me speeding up the last mile (which is mostly down hill grade) and kicking down to the 6 minute pace for the last tenth, I ran a slower time on the return. This tells me the return is more difficult.

I am not sure about the mileage though. When I ran this winter, I thought it was about 4 miles from the parking lot to the power lines. This trip came in at 3.4 miles one way (6.8 for the round trip) My Garmen is not very accurate at Bradbury and usually reads short so the 3.4 is an estimate (garmen actually read  1.34 over and 2.86 back)

Bradbury run

6.8 miles @1:14:17 (10:55 pace)
splits:
36:51 (10:51 pace)
37:26 (11:01 pace)