Sunday, April 17, 2005

ON THE TRAILS AGAIN

Since I wasn’t able to run with my team yesterday, I wanted to go a little harder today. That meant leaving my 40 lb. daughter and baby jogger at home. 10 minutes into my run I decided to do a mile around a dirt track, just to see what my easy pace is these days. That ended up being 8:05, so I figure the 8:20-8:30 pace I’ve been using for my very easy runs is fairly accurate.

I was thinking about running on the trails for about an hour before heading back to the track and running another timed 3 miles near marathon pace. However, as soon as I set foot on the trails, I knew there was no way I’d be going back and running 12 laps on the track. This was my first time on the trails since last fall and it was great to be on them again. How can you not like running on trails? I’d do it every day if I could.

Despite yesterday’s rain, the trails were still in really good shape. I felt pretty good on the flats, but my legs felt really heavy every time I went up a hill. Since leaving the track I had picked up the pace a little and I was probably running 7:45s. I stayed out for just over 1:40 and called it 13 miles.

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