From this afternoon’s run. Banged through work (and lunch with the boys – I’m down in Waterford today) and hit the access road loop near the office at 4 PM. Beautiful day – a bit on the cold side, but I ran without a hat or jacket and didn’t feel I was going to lose any limbs.
I really like this loop. Starts off with about .2 miles downhill, then about a half mile on a pretty steep hill. Next half mile is downhill to the turn under the interstate. Once under the interstate, it starts a nice, gradual three-quarter mile climb that (hooray!) gets steeper near the top. As I’m typing, I’m imagining that it’d be a cast iron bear on a bicycle… The last bit is pretty flat over the overpass and back to the office. It’s scenic – the highway is behind either brush or a small berm most of the way, and our complex is about the only construction on the access road. There’s a bunch of scenic New England Stone Walls (TM), trees, and a field in which there are ALWAYS Odocoileus virginianus grazing.
(n.b on stone walls: I swear you can’t walk 200 yards in any stretch of woods up here without tripping over one. But I laugh because every stone in the walls is a memory of a Puritan farmer uttering a four letter word as yet another rock came up under his plow. Not that Puritans are funny or anything, but because I continue to harvest a new crop each spring.)
Anyways, today’s stats are 3.3 miles in 27:43, an 8:26 pace.
I finally got around to reviewing the Forerunner from Tuesday’s epic, and was shocked. I’ve been riffing on “Finish Strong” for a while, at least in my head. Dig these mile splits: 8:49/8:32/8:34/8:07/8:17/8:07/7:45 (Last is pace for .2 miles of downhill) The course was out-and-back, the wind was a cross wind, and it’s not more uphill either way. So the splits represent nothing but pure joy.