“Strong finish,” said the man who’d passed me around the start of the last mile, whom I caught and passed and was challenged by and eventually blew by in the end. He said it to me as I was doing my finishing walk. It was an interesting 12.3 miles in Central Park today. It was my first true long run of the year, set in decent conditions–66 degrees, maybe 60% or 70% humidity, and mostly cloudy. That is, it wasn’t too hot, too humid, or too sunny, but it was alright.
If you view the details of this run, you will see that my pace for the first loop was considerably different than the pace for my second loop. My second loop was much faster!! My first half was basically 7:46, 8:03, 7:53, 8:46, 8:10, and 8:18–mostly above 8:00s, which is maybe a little embarrassing. But my second half was basically 8:09, 7:35, 7:11, 7:57, 7:36, 7:15, plus a wee bit at 6:29–mostly sub-8:00s, but sizably sub-8:00s.
I don’t really know where I got that oompah for the second half. One theory is that my music changed for the second half of the run; for the first half I listened to the 50-minute NPR podcast of On the Media, so I was listening to talk rather than to music. After that was over, the music kicked in, and it seemed my pace did, too. I was pretty warmed up by this point so I felt more comfortable picking up the pace. My heart rate seemed to agree, from what I could tell. And nothing really seemed to hold me back. So I let the desire to go faster rule, and rule it did for the second half of the run.
Despite the faster times, I got passed by a lot of men and one, maybe two women. I’m still not that fast. I was carrying a little more weight today, some from muscle I’ve added in my upper body, some from food like the ceremonial Oglio & Aglio with Chicken that I get Friday nights at Euro Delights. Plus, my legs felt pretty “dead” in the first half of the run: they just didn’t want to respond. Before the run, I had noticeable tightness in my Achilles tendon but where it attaches at the base of the gastrocnemius (or maybe I had tightness in the lower part of my calf/gastrocnemius). However, that tightness didn’t seem to add any discomfort to my run. In fact, I had no pain in my run today. I only wrestled with the residual unsuccessful coughs and throat-clearings from the cold I got a week ago and was done by last Sunday.
Before the run I had ArginMax and quercetin, as well as a PowerGel. I had my pasta late last night and had it despite feeling a little full from a meal a couple hours earlier, which included a few ravioli. I did this run with no water, and I capped off this run with some chocolate milk, some coconut water, and some proteinous Naked Juice. I’ll be having some salmon sushi in a bit. Protein! I plan on another run tomorrow, maybe about 8.15 miles if my body’s up for it. Comparing my 7:51s over 12.3 with this time in training last year, last year I didn’t do two laps until June 14th in similar weather, doing 7:31s. But my running over 8.15 last year is about the pace I am right now, so I think I’m doing well.