10 miles on WODT

This past Sunday was my day to do 10 miles on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail.  Well, it wasn't mandated that I run there - I just picked that trail to run because it wasn't hilly and I wanted to do 10 miles.

The area that I live in is at the top of a  hill, so no matter which way I go, I'm always finishing uphill, which is fine in many ways - great for training purposes for example.  It seems that every route in my immediate area has no measurable distance that is more or less flat; I'm either going up a hill or down one.  Again, it is good training, and I can feel it in my legs - in a good way.  It's a great work out.

So back to Sunday: I wanted to get 10 miles in, but wanted to "just run"... thus the WODT.  This was only my second time on it and I still kind of like it.  It's reasonably safe traffic wise, except for when you have to cross a road and you have to guess whether or not the car waving you across is actually not going to run you over - and it is well taken care of.  Go early enough and you have the trail pretty much to yourself.

The path runs under high-tension power lines, which is a little weird in a way.  I'm an EE engineer by degree, and I remember my Fields and Waves classes... just exactly how many Gauss are we exposing our bodies to anyway?.. Clearly a topic for a different blog or forum.

But my point with the power lines is that it was a foggy, then misty, then drizzly morning (7AM-ish) and the lines were buzzing, which adds to the weirdness of the run.

Overall it was a great run - but not altogether flat; I had a few minor (very minor) hills to tackle, but nothing that I had to focus on.  I ran an out-and-back (5 miles out, turn around and run back - no opportunity to quit: my truck is at the end of the run....).  It's always easy to run the first 5 miles, it's the last few miles that get hard.

The best part - the part that I totally love - is what I call the breakthrough:  almost always during a long run I'll enter a tired phase and most of the time it just sticks with me until I'm done with my run.  But every now and again I'll get a breakthrough; it's like running through a curtain and I am no longer tired. It's like I am (temporarily) re-infused with energy - and it feels sooo good.  It is impossible to know how long it will last (usually at least a couple-three miles), but never longer than that.  But when it happens it is the greatest feeling ever.

On Sunday I got that breakthrough right at mile 8 and it was awesome.  I cut almost a minute off my next mile split, and then another 30 seconds off of that for my last mile. I got PB's for my last two mile splits (the nerd that I am tracks his splits on a spreadsheet....).  When I got to mile 9 I felt so strong that I just got on the balls of my feet and just ran.  It was as effortless a run as I can ever remember.  It was like suddenly I was running the way the guys at Newton Shoes were expecting me to run with their shoes....

I do remember thinking, as I was approaching the mile 10 marker, that I would not be able to keep up that pace for  very much longer, but I was able to just long enough.  It was a blast and I felt great about it.

Overall I averaged an 8:49 min/mile pace over the 10 miles, with my first mile being the slowest (planned it that way) at 9:56 and the last mile being my fastest at 7:45.  It was good tempo training.  My pace is still considered "slow" and I won't win any medals, but so what... I'm just running for me.

 160 days to the MCM!