Some days you’ve got it….some days you don’t. Today was clearly one of those days where I did NOT have it. However, I’m not down about it all, because before this I’ve had the longest string of days where I DID have it in my running life.
The schedule for this morning called for 45-minutes easy with 6 x 100m stride outs at the end. Nathan and I decided to meet at the Edwin Warner Nature Center and run 22 1/2 minutes out-and-back on the Candy Cane and Red Trails between Edwin and Percy Warner Parks. I could tell from the outset that my body was just not going to cooperate. The humidity was still very high and my legs felt heavy and achy.
I spent the whole run trying to maintain pace with Nathan, especially going up the steep hills on the red trail (still had over 1,100 ft of elevation gain even though it was just a 45-minute run), but eventually just let him go. It didn’t help that three times during the run I had to stop and re-tie the laces on my Saucony Peregrines. I love these shoes, but the stock laces have got to be the worst ever included on a pair of trail shoes. I absolutely cannot keep them tied, even with double knots. Any of my trail-running friends out there have a recommendation for a good pair of replacement laces?
Love the symmetry of the out-and-back on the elevation chart
Anyway, I started to feel slightly better on the way back to the Nature Center, but coming back was mostly downhill and much easier than going out. At the end of the trail portion my total was 4.5-miles completed at just under 10-minute pace. We finished up with stride outs in the parking lot of the Nature Center. Recently Nathan has been blowing by me on the strides, but today I was able to keep up with him through the first 3 reps. However, for the final 3, he again blew past me like I was sitting still. My average pace for the strides was 5:48.
Final total was 4.9-miles completed at 9:40 average pace per mile.
Beast Mode….flickering…..flickering……flickering……ON!