Our hero’s frustration with Garmin took a turn for the better this week when he used his ‘Rona cash to replace his aging Garmin Forerunner 220 with a Coros Apex. This was not the only change this week…
Monday: 6 miles. This started out interestingly… First run with Knuckle Lights and as soon as I turned the first corner in the park I saw a deer in the soccer field. Then, after I turned another corner I saw a green flash in the sky – it was a meteorite from the Lyrid Meteor Shower. Unfortuntely, all good things must end as I entered asshat acres and was ignored (despite very bright lights) by an asshat behind the wheel. Fortunately, the rest of the run was without incident. 6.03 miles in 52:48 (8:45/mile pace).
Tuesday: 8 x 800 intervals. Ran these entirely in the park, where I was on my warm up before I realized that it’s nearly 10 miles of running. Splits were 3:40, 3:36, 3:32, 3:34, 3:35, 3:35, 3:32, 3:36; the goal range was 3:31 – 3:37, so one – the first – was slow. Overall 9.5 miles in 1:19:08 (8:20/mile pace).
In addition to the new watch, I decided to change up my afternoon snack. For a while, I was eating pretzel nuggets, and I’ve changed it to carrot sticks with humus.
Wednesday: 5 miles recovery. Ran in the park and the subdivision next to it. I’m not sure what happened to the weather here, I was in short sleeves on Tuesday, and a pullover over a long-sleeve shirt today. This was my first use of my new Coros watch, which has some advantages (aside from a lightning-fast GPS lock). 5.03 miles in 44:17 (8:48/mile pace).
Thursday: 35 minute tempo. The better weather was back, but my new-watch-blues are that I can’t set this watch the same way I did my Garmin. So I ran 4.5 miles at a hopefully-tempo pace after a one mile warm up and did a one mile cool down after. Ran in the park and neighboring subdivision again. It does appear that I was in the 4.5 mile tempo portion for 36:50 for an average of 8:11/mile pace, which is a little slower than normal. Overall, 6.53 miles in 55:03 (8:26/mile pace).
Friday: 12 miles. It seems like it’s been a while since I’ve gotten away from the park and neighboring subdivision, so I decided to go downtown. I made my way to the Airport trail head and ran into downtown and through most of Friendship Park and all of Sawyer Point, Yeatman’s Cove, and Smale Park and turned around to return. I did pause for a few pictures and my turnaround was late. 12.67 miles in 1:51:56 (8:50/mile pace). My new watch is telling me that it’s going to take me 2.5 days to recover from this run. š¤·āāļø.
That’s it for the week. Just under 40 miles with two speedwork days and one long day. On to the next. š»