It brings me great sadness to announce that I am back in New York City. Since the family could not fit in a Fed Ex box slated for for Palo Alto, I had to return. Bleh. Still, I was committed to taking the positive vibes generated in the Bay Area and put them to use for the CPTC Thursday Night tempo. I owed it to myself to have a decent workout in CP considering my last attempt …
The plan called for a classic workout 2×2 with ~1 mile recovery thru the Harlem Hills at 10k pace. I felt good jogging to the park, but took it extra slow to readjust to the heat and humidity. My goals were to embrace the pain and work thru it … not physical pain (although after 30 miles in 3 days something could have cropped up). Rather, I needed to fight the signals to slow down or stop. At the same time, I was committed to NOT look at the watch until the end of each interval … running by feel and whatnot. Ironically, the first 2 miles covered the same terrain as the first 1.5 of DNF. Redemption? Not really. More like confidence building or testing. With the exception of the track, I have not raced particularly well as the days have become warmer. So, I needed to confirm that the DNF was a one time, freak of nature-type event. That process began in LA and continued in Palo Alto. It would conclude on Thursday night. The results:
|
|
Distance | Time | Pace |
| Warm Up | 1.49 | 14:05 | 9:27 |
| 1 x | 1.96 | 13:58 | 7:07 |
| Recovery | 0.96 | 9:56 | 10:20 |
| 1 x | 2.01 | 14:07 | 7:01 |
| Cool Down | 1.28 | 11:56 | 9:19 |
Far more important than the splits was that I felt normal. No pangs of panic or hatred of running. Whew. DNF was a freak of nature. I love running! Any feelings to the contrary were caused by outside forces (effects of jobby stress). I felt good throughout both intervals. I never pushed the pace but didn’t back down from it either … heat and humidity notwithstanding. The negative splits were also nice to see, probably helped a bit by the turtle-like recovery … beyond grandpa shuffling. But, hey, it worked.
Now for you all none of this is particularly interesting or enlightening, but for me, it was a step forward after many steps back. Hopefully, onward and upward. Welcome back.