Running With Jack

It was rainy and a cool 19C/66F as I headed out the door for my training run last night. My goal was a comfortable recovery run, as I had a rather long long run on Saturday. But as the rain stopped and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds my legs had other ideas. I dropped into a nice comfortable pace, briefly enjoying the sun’s rays before they again deserted me. Yesterday was a stressful day at work, lots of annoying little tasks keeping me away from what I really should be working on. I carried these thoughts with me in my head as I swung around my 16K/10M route. My legs were singing 'Born to be Wild', my heart 'Do, Run, Run' and my mind which should have been singing 'Take it Easy' was thinking about work.

About the 12K point my legs started to remember that they had just run 36K/22M on Saturday and started whining. I guess this brought me back to reality, looking at my watch I realized I had been running at an average 5:30/K (8:51/M) pace, not exactly a recovery pace (for me at least). I attempted to slow down a little, but this didn’t work out to well. I still finished with an average pace of 5:35/K (9:00/M).

Oh well, my legs feel pretty good today, a little tired but no soreness or anything. Now, how should I list that in my spreadsheet too fast for a recovery run or for an easy run as well, I guess it was a tempo run 25 seconds faster per kilometer (39 seconds per mile) than my planned marathon pace.

Very satisfying anyway and it also helped clear my head somewhat.