Woke up at 3 AM to get in an outdoor run today. Waking up that early to run is not easy but it just about guarantees me a good workout. Today was no exception.
Met up with the guys at 4:20 and with a plan to run 8 with the intent of going ~7:40 pace for the first bit and then picking it up at the end. Jeff was up for that plan so we went out together. Started out okay with the first mile at 7:49 pace. Things were feeling pretty good so we picked it up a bit and ran the 2nd mile in 7:18... faster than planned but not out of control, especially since mile 2 in downhill and always pretty fast.
Mile 3 is where it started getting interesting. I don't know what it is exactly, but Jeff is an exceptional downhill runner. Whenever, we reach a downhill he will take off on me and open up a 20 foot gap. I usually, just let him go, but I'm not sure I'd be able to keep up if I wanted to even at a full sprint?!? The course we run on has rolling hills so I usually wind up closing the gap on the uphill sections, generally pulling even with him at the top. These downhill surges wind up juicing up the pace and next thing I know we had rattled off a 7:05 third mile.
Things eased up a bit for mile 4 as Jeff's downhill surges became slightly less pronounced. I was still feeling pretty relaxed and not pushing overly hard. Finished up mile 4 in 7:12.
Mile 5 is uphill and I pulled ahead of Jeff. I normally struggle on mile 5 but it didn't feel to bad today. I ran it in 7:24 pace, which Strava equates to a 7:10 due to the hill. I continued cruising through mile 6, still feeling good... I ditched my headband and gloves (socks) at this point as I was sweating in the 30 degree weather. I thought I had lost Jeff at this point but as I reached the end of mile 6 I heard him coming up behind me, as I finished the mile in 7:11. Mile 7 starts uphill, but with 2 miles left I started to push a bit and ran another 7:10 mile.
Going into the final mile I was starting to feel fatigued, as this was my first harder than normal sustained effort since mid September. At this point I was averaging 7:18 pace for the run. Part of me wanted to just keep it under 7:20, so I started playing the game where I figured out how much I could slow up and still reach that goal. Another part of me wanted to bring it down under 7:15 pace to rival a "break though" effort back in February. With .25 to go I was still at 7:17 pace so I picked it up to about 6:20 pace, pretty much sprinting by the end. Ran the last mile in 6:51 overall.
8.02 miles
58:08
7:14.9 pace
Just barely pulled it off. Looking back to February, I had actually ran that effort at sub 7:13 pace so I was just slightly off. However, I was wearing Vaporflys for the first time and it was a harder overall effort, plus no 7:49 first mile... one of these days I'm gonna have to try a Vaporfly training run to see what happens.
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