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Tempo after dark

August 12, 2019 (Night)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
After finally watching the video of Zeke's 5k victory at New Englands last spring, I had gone to bed all pumped up to go out and run a hard tempo in the morning. However, I woke up late at 11am when it was already hot and feeling like I really ought to get started on my research before any more the day slipped away. By the early evening, I had just about given up on running today altogether, but the urge to be outside somehow led me out the front door (barefoot) as I was sending a text message, wandering aimlessly up and down the sidewalk. All of a sudden, a Bowdoin-bound neighbor came bounding up the street as at dazzlingly brisk clip, in the midst of some sort of tempo run or pickup. A mixture of inspiration and guilt washed over me, and I dashed back inside to throw on a pair of shoes and head out for a workout of my own. My legs were super antsy for some reason, like pair of dogs begging to let out for a walk. For the first few miles I flew. I deliberarly left my cellphone at home, which is rare for me these day, because I wanted to really feel free. This meant that in order to check my pace midrun I'd need to go somewhere with marked miles, so I headed for the CCT in Bethesda. Turns out that the Capital Cresent Trail gets really dark after dark! Who knew? Well, actually I did, having done a run about the same time of a day with Julia Enrst a month ago, but somehow I didn't remember that small detail. Also, the mile markers are basically the same color as the trees and have no reflective properties. I managed to make out the one before the River Road bridge since that's in a well lit area and I knew where to look, and by luck I just barely caught sight of the one half a mile later. 3:08. Not bad. Not ideal of course, since I've run marathon's faster than this pace, but it's hot and humid this time of year and I've done almost no workouts since April. Despite scanning the of trail intently, I didn't see any other mile markers till I reached the little bridge after the tunnel down by Delacartia Reservoir. I had run 13:08 for the past two miles, which wasn't really anything to write home about given that it was a smooth surface and downhill. Turning around, I fought my way back up to River Road where I noted that my pace had dropped to nearly 7min/mile on average...so I'd been going a good deal slower on the way back. Felt hard as heck though. I was breathing heavily the whole time and a voice from inside my lungs kept asking when I would allowed to slow down already. Not till I'm home, I told it. I turned off at Dorset and sailed on home, glad to have some lighting again and relieved to not get stopped by traffic at Wisconsin or Connecticut (it was already 10 o'clock by now). The final two blocks to my house proved to be among the easiest and fastest. I practically flew up the big Rittenhouse Hill, motivated by being nearly there and ignoring the pain in my legs on the ascent. After passing the end of our front walk, I slowed to a jog, but gradually and subconsciously picked it up to a normally running pace again. I meandered down a couple alleys and went about a half mile before finally calling it quits at back side of Lafayette School Playground not far from where Rhianna lives.

All in all, it's hard to imagine doing a marathon right now at the pace I ran last spring, let alone my PR pace. Then again, it's hard to imagine going that fast even when I'm training for one. This felt like a good hard workout and that's all I was looking for. I'm eager for this pace to become my normal running pace though in the coming weeks and months and rediscover the "joys" of sub-6-minute miles.