Monday, January 17, 2011

Fleet Feet Running Group 4 miler: 1/6

I hadn't attended the social run in a while and wanted to make sure that I got in at least one appearance this month.  I knew that I would be traveling later in the month, so this might be my only chance.  Considering the weather that we have been having, I was more than likely correct.  There was a pretty good crowd for this run, somewhere between 15-20 people, which is a good turnout for the Thursday Running Group in the winter when there isn't and event.  I felt like I had been having a pretty good week exercise wise and wanted to do more the my usual 3 miles, so I decided to do 4 miles with most of the other runners that showed up.  I had run this course once before and knew that I was a nice little run that I could really push myself on.  But before I left on of the people that I was going to run with asked me what my pace was going to be.  I hadn't really given it much thought because I normally just run and see what my pace was afterward.  She had said that their group had been doing about 10 min. miles, but that she would like to pick up the pace, and asked if I would run with them to help her push the pace a little.  So, I decided that I would even though I knew their might be a little resistance. 

The first mile of the course is all one long slop down hill, so I knew that we could do much better than 10 min. miles.  I pushed it a little and we did it in 8:39.

The second mile was still down hill, but I had said that I would try to shoot for 9 1/2 min. miles, so I backed the second mile down to 9:14.70, which was a good pace for chatting.

The third mile we started hitting the up hill portion of the course.  The Third mile is rolling hills at first and then leads into the last incline that is the last .25 of mile three and all of mile 4.  We did this in 9:4, which as a little faster than I intended, but I was feeling really good and couldn't hold back.  Also, one of the other runners was pushing the pace with me, so I was mainly trying to stay with her more than anything else.

The last mile was all uphill and I just wanted it over with.  I normally would not run a hill like this in the manner I did, which was more of a charge than I wanted, but I new that the course ended right at the top of the hill, so I just went for it as hard as I could at that point.  I did the last mile in 9:56.79, which I felt pretty good about at the time. 

Overall, this was the best run that I have had in a while.  I enjoyed it a great deal, and I am looking forward to running this course more often as the weather gets better.  Overall we did the whole course at a 9:18 pace.  Faster than we had intended, but I think everyone felt good about it afterward.

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