Hard Training

I started a little earlier This Saturday to be sure I could get the full 4 hours in.   I hit Lunchbreak hill at 4:45 Am and my first surprise was how much better my new headlamp was than my old one. Besides a solid forward beam, it had enough power to somewhat light up the peripheral. This made my ground perception much better than last Saturday.

 I definitely had less trouble following the trail with this lamp. The one draw back, though minor was that it was a little heavier so I had to make the strap much tighter which bothered a bit.  There was a slight mist in the air and with the lamp on it resembled a tiny snow squall. Not that I am wishing for snow, but it was kinda cool.

 The climb seemed a little harder this morning. I suspect part of that was the extra weight with the Nathan vest and all the gear. Not that I needed that much gear but I wanted to tax myself on this run and the extra weight would help.

I decided to run until I felt fatigue before eating or drinking. The idea was to bonk a bit and then fight back from it. I also needed to know how far I could stretch it. Two hours went by and I still felt fairly fresh, then about 6 minutes later I could feel the cement hardening on my legs and the breath laboring. I don't think I slowed the pace too much and I had no muscle cramps, I just felt tired and heavy.

 For the second time, I had problems following the right trail on the East side so I had a bit extra mileage when I got back to the school. I striped off the nathan vest and gear then headed back to the trail. It is amazing how much better that felt.

 I ran the hill a minute faster and felt much stronger......funny how different it can feel with just a few pounds shed. I did a two mile loop which I called a cooldown. Kinda  funny though because my pace was 1-2 minutes per mile faster than when I first started. I am sure part of that is the dark running which is considerably slower.

Now that I have run about  a half dozen times from the school, I found the part I least like is the descent. I think the grade is just too much to allow me to run comfortable. It is almost like I have to brake a bit. Whats odd is I don't have the same problem running down the Terrace trail and I think the grade is similar.

 Upon the second return, I actually felt great and if time had permited, I would have shot for five hours.

BBU loop:  16 miles @3:33:54 (13:23 pace)
Lunch break hill cooldown loop: 2.2 miles@ 25:30 (11:36 pace)