5 mile run 2/2/12

I had my longest straight run, ever.  I ran with Colleen, so maybe even that's a little cheating (having someone to talk to) but I don't care.  It still counts.

We did the loop at North Park after work again today.  We started out at the Boat House and there is a hill that looks scary and we've walked once but I've never ran it.  (Colleen has).  After running my neighborhood yesterday, I realized how freaking hilly my neighborhood is!  And I decided I wanted to try the scary hill at North Park.  So we started at the Boat House and, going counter clockwise around the lake, we started up the hill.  I was surprised, it wasn't that bad!!!  So I came home and looked at the data.

Worst hill in my housing plan:
128 ft increase in 0.26 miles
Scary hill in North Park:
66 ft increase in 0.30 miles

That makes me feel better about how much I struggle with that hill in my housing plan, too.  When I ran yesterday I considered looping around and doing it again but I walked part of the hill the first time and there was no way  I was going to do it again yesterday!  Even with the beautiful weather.

After the hill we continued around the lake.  Not even one mile in I was thinking (but not saying out loud) that there was no way I was going to be able to run 5 miles without walking at all.  I told Colleen I wanted to aim for 10:30-11:00 for a mile pace and I kept trying to slow it down so I didn't tire myself out.  We weren't sure how fast it was going to get dark, so at about 2.6 miles we turned around and headed back instead of staying on the loop and running along the busier streets.  I think we actually would have made it all the way around in time, but I'd rather be safe than sorry, and Colleen had left her light in her car.

When we were about 3.5 miles or so into the run, Colleen asked how I felt running.  At that point we discussed potentially walking after we hit the 4 mile mark but I really wanted to push it and finish. We were over halfway there!  So even though I was tired I kept pushing.  And we actually sped up at the end- the last mile was our fastest and under 10:00!

Colleen makes this prettier but here's the data with our mile times.  (She has the prettier version here with her blog post.)

Distance	Mile Time	Total Time
1.00	10:25.4	10:25.4
2.00	10:41.8	21:07.2
3.00	10:27.5	31:34.7
4.00	10:25.4	42:00.1
5.00	09:53.9	51:54.0
5.07	00:39.8	52:33.8
Average Pace		10:22.1

Best 0.25 mile Split 2:25.4
Worst 0.25 mile Split 2:48.8

With my pace goal, I wanted to keep our splits between 2:37 and 2:45 so that's pretty good.  Of the 20 splits, 9 were in that time range.  1 was slower than I was aiming for and 10 were faster.

Here is the graph comparing the elevation and the speed (elevation in green and speed in blue).  The biggest spike in the speed (slowest pace) is when we turned around to head back.  We didn't climb the hill the 2nd time around so the distance out was a little further than the distance back.

I really appreciate that she's willing to slow down for me.  I know she can run much faster and further than I can and it's so nice to have the company!