Tuesday night club runs usually have a few new runners trying us out.
This week I was paired up with a guy trying us out for the first time. Louis said he wanted to run 8:00 minute miles, which is a little faster than I normally run on Tuesday night. My legs still have not had a chance to fully recover from these past two weeks.
I figured that I was up to the challenge of running a bit faster than normal and felt it might be good for me to step it up a bit.
Our first mile was 8:50: A good warm up pace. We start on Main Street in Melrose so it can get congested with pedestrians and other runners. Mile 2 we dropped down to 8:15 as we started running on the side of the road. At mile two we take a left onto Greenwood. This is a dark street with a fair amount of traffic. Between the shadows, pot holes, debris and traffic it can be a challenging piece of road.
Just after Mile three the road turns right onto Franklin Street for a nice half mile hill. Louis and I didn’t talk as much but we blew past several groups of runners from our club. As we came up behind one group of fast runners I told Louis that we didn’t need to pass these guys.
I don’t think he heard me. The next thing I know, he is weaving his way through the group. I was in the street and had to kick in the after burners to keep up. Even with that hill we ran an 8:00 minute mile. I was beginning to understand what this guy could do. Part of me felt like he was testing me. All right.
We ran the down hill on Franklin Street to the Fellsway. My legs felt strong and I kept good form as I stormed down the hill. It’s dark, there are pot holes and I have a marathon in three weeks. I had moments of concern. But I was being tested.
Before we took the corner we caught up with Dave and then passed him on the hill on the Fellsway. After we crested the hill we proceeded to storm down the hill past the Dunkin Donuts. As we passed that driveway my watched chimed. I looked down and saw that we had just run a 7:14 mile! There was a lot of down hill, but there was a nice chunk of hill in there also. We were cruising!
The last 1.19 miles we averaged about 8:25 minutes per mile. Not a bad pace after running that strong for five miles. West Wyoming has some hill to it and we had to deal with pedestrians and traffic again.
We ended up running a solid 8:05 pace for 6.19 miles. I’m not sure who was testing who, but we got in one hell of a run! It was just the run that I needed. I hope Louis joins us next week.
Run well my Friends,
Andy
ยฉ 2014 anagelin