7.2mi, 60:44

Hilary Duff, "Come Clean"
Metallica, "Orion"

WX at 0500: 51(11), DP 48(9), RH 30.22(1023), winds N 7, RH 87%

Odometer 1: 88mi

Z3 most of the way. Average heartrate about 160 in the first 4 miles, averaging 165-170 in the last three.

Today was the first of at least four 7.2 mile runs. This should be a last surge week before I start to do some more sharpening runs in preparation for the Fort Bragg post cross-country meet (10km), which my boss managed to cajole me into running, and my semiannual physical fitness test (which includes a two mile run).

Obviously, the 2 mile is a very different race than 10,000m, but I'm not that concerned. Yet. I traditionally race better at longer distances since I have very little raw speed. I should probably resolve that partly by hitting the weights, but I'm too lazy to leave my building during the lunch hour and do so. Maybe that'll change in the next few weeks.

Splits were quick as befitted the weather and sleeping in for the last two days:
1.4: 12:00 [8:34]
2.0: 29:01 (17:01) [8:30]
1.4: 40:52 (11:51) [8:27]
2.4: 60:44 (19:51) [8:16]

This is my fastest time on this particular loop; this tops my earlier best of 60:56 back in August, which was done in very similar WX conditions. This begs the question of whether I could've tried harder, although I'm not sure how much more work I'd have done today. The other possibility is that I'm not getting any faster regardless how much I work on distance work and I need to try something else. Tomorrow needs to be an easy day, so I'll shoot for a max of 160 heartrate and see if that works for an easy day at the same distance. The WX should be about the same.