L10 Day 28 - Rust Prevention

I have to admit something - I'm a happy turtle right now.  This past week, I've done two 5K distances in under 33 minutes.  Today was my last little jog before the Possum Ridge 5K in Kentucky, which I think of as a "rust prevention" run.  I took a few laps easy but I made some of them challenging.

I did the first three laps at a 11:14 pace.  For those keeping score, that was about my PB pace less than two months ago. 

I took a meandering route to the middle school track which took another three laps.  When I got to the track, some guy had just started jogging and was about 30 feet ahead of me.  I thought: "Okay, I'll pace this turkey."  This is exciting to me ... because I have no idea what this guy was going to do and his calves were disturbingly beefy.  He might have gained a few yards on me in that first lap.  Now, at 1.75 miles in, I had run the last mile in 11:10.

I caught back up to being 30 feet behind in the second lap on the track.  He would check his six every now and then, and I would look all nonchalant and anti-melodramatic.  Then on the next lap I decided to go faster.  It's still hard for me to decide this, especially in the middle of a run, but I did and I put in two laps that averaged to a 10:20 pace.  So I passed him and felt like a cub scout earning a merit badge.  To be even less mature, a different jogger was going to pass me in the last 100 yards of my mile on the track and I decided to go even faster.  I exited the track as "the winner", and started to jog home.  At 2.75 miles in, I had run the last mile in 10:38.

After a half mile, I somehow had the mental wherewithall to demand another pace increase.  I did that quarter mile at a cool 6.0 miles per hour.  Then I told myself I had to beat that, so I did with a pace of 6.5 miles per hour.  My run ended at 3.75 miles, I had run the last mile in 10:11.

It was a little cooler tonight at 72°, and it was only 40% humidity.  So, my run was much more enjoyable than last time.  As an added bonus, I hit 5K (3.11 miles) at 33:58.  Any time I beat 35 minutes, it feels like a big accomplishment, since that had been my target for so long.  As you can see, my heart rate got up there at the end, reminding me that I'm simply not sub-30-minute 5K ready.  Considering that I was doing a 13:20 pace during the later stages of C25K, I'm happy with having shaved off almost three minutes from that pace.