Tuesday afternoon
5 mi / 8 km
22 F / -5.5 C
4 F / -15.6 C windchill
Kind of cold today, nonetheless the late winter sun's advancing height in the sky had begun to melt yesterday's 4-5 inches of snow from our street, so I was hopeful I'd encounter my fairgrounds back-n-forth street in decent condition. I did better than that. As I drove up to it I discovered it was almost completely dry! And what little moisture did exist had already frozen. So I took off my Vapor Gloves in the car and decided to see how long I could run bare in the mildly nasty windchill. The wind really gusts up on that street, which embraces a high point in the area and is quite exposed. I surprised myself by being able to run bare the whole way. My feet numbed down, to be sure, but the brave little soles never tapped out. I wonder if the asphalt was radiating heat. It was cloudy during my run but had been sunny for most of the day. The wind also died down a bit for the last mile or two, which seemed to halt the progressive numb-plunge.
At the beginning of the run, I wanted to get the feet warmed up as quick as possible, so I headed out at a good clip, and then surprised myself when I found I was able to sustain what must have been something like a 9mm pace. I had forgotten my Garmin, so I can't be sure of the pace, but it felt pretty good. I wouldn't be surprised if it were sub-9mm pace, actually, but I know the tendency is for me to overestimate my velocity. Still, I looked over at my sideways shadow on the snow bank, and he seemed to be doing alright.
Anyway, after two unsatisfying runs--last Thursday's with heavy legs and Sunday's with sinews out-of-kilter--I knew I was due for a good run, but I didn't expect it to be so easy. I didn't really begin to tire until about the fifth .9-mile repeat, a bit before the four-mile mark. I probably slowed to something like a 9:30-10mm pace after that, and only ran another mile or so. I thought about tagging another few miles onto the run, for aerobic conditioning, but it was getting late and I was anxious to get home and hang out with the wife and kids. Overall, it was a very satisfying run. I know from prior experience that bad workouts are often precursors to mild breakthroughs, so perhaps that was the case today. If the legs feel up for it, I may try another tempo run on tomorrow's run too.
The third and final surprise was that after the first quarter mile or so, when I looked down at my feet to see what kind of meter I was running in at this, my tempo pace, I discovered I had locked into a perfect five-count rhythm: 1-2-3-1-2. That's three steps inhale, two steps exhale. Felt perfectly natural. And then Jethro Tull's 5/4 "Living in the Past" immediately popped into my head. Or did it bubble up from a subconscious grade-school biorhythm of some sort? Actually I often hear that song when I'm running well, and now it all makes sense, thanks to Barefoot Gentile's recent thread on rhythmic running. Can Tantric sex be far behind?