5.1mi, 40:37

George Sanger, defend mission background music from the games Wing Commander and Wing Commander 2

WX at 0700: 44 (7), DP 42 (6), BP 30.02 (1016), Calm, mist, RH 93%

Odometer 2: 279.5mi

Z3 hard.
Resting heart rate before start = 60

Two things that preceded today's run that point to improvement:
1. Stretching. Today was much, much faster than yesterday, and the weather was not the only citable aspect. I probably need to start stretching again; while the "stretch to avoid injury" piece is debatable in some circles, the "stretch to loosen muscles up" definitely works. That would explain the -51 second delta from yesterday on the first 1.5 split.
2. Hydration. While drinking a liter of water before the run is irksome (and extends my pre-run wait about 40 minutes), it probably doesn't hurt. I don't worry about hyponatraemia for runs under 10 miles in any event; I'm pretty certain my sodium intake is more than sufficient (along with every other American in the universe, it seems).

Today wasn't a PR (about two minutes), but a little statistical analysis on an earlier run points to the value of stretching before going out the door. Since there's all of that much decrease in speed since the Cold From Hell(tm), I achieved one of the goals of this winter, which was to generally not lose any mileage or training base.

Splits
1.5 11:34 11:34 07:43
2.1 28:54 17:20 08:15
1.5 40:37 11:43 07:49 07:53