A.M. Ran with Jeff. Gave the foot and the fitness a mild test. Wore racing flats. We warmed up 3.62 which took us to the start of the Fast Running Blog 5 Miler course. The plan was to run comfortably hard (for me) until I felt we've run enough, but no more than 5 miles. I told Jeff to start at 5:50 - 5:55 pace.He ended up going a whole lot faster from the gun, but I did not mind as I wanted to have a good fitness test and I was feeling good. About 2 miles into the tempo I felt like I could keep the pace all the way to 5, but wanted to avoid unnecessary stress on the foot and on the nervous system, so I made the decision to go to 3. So we ended up with the following quarter splits: 85 - 84 - 83 - 84 (5:36) - 83.5 - 84.5 - 85.5 - 83.5 (5:37, 11:13) - 83 - 86 (180 turn) - 81 - 79 (5:29, 16:42.7). Total time for 3 was 16:42.7, 5:34 average. The form felt good with the exception that the right foot was not allowing me to power quite as hard as I wanted. There was also some minor soreness at the insertion point of the achilles tendon on the left foot. In the past I would not have even mentioned this, but I am trying a new approach. The idea is to attack those minor aches to allow me to pound the ground as hard as I want rather than adjust the form to work around the aches. So I am going to continue to ice those spots and run some of the mileage on grass until I can put full force into the steps at any good form running angle. I was also pleased with the leg power response. No trouble picking up the pace to 5:20 in the last 0.5, legs felt snappy. HR was 156 at 5:36 pace, and maxed out at 162 at the end at 5:20 pace. Compared to yesterday, the effort perception was also very much in line with HR patterns. Jeff's HR also behaved normally. So I suppose we did not get out of shape after all, something was indeed really odd about the Footprinter's field. Which is what I suspected. Finished 10, then drove to a nearby grass field with Benjamin (It was not far but I did not want to run with the wheel), measured out a 1260 foot loop (0.238), and ran 9 of them with him barefoot in 18:52. That is 2.15 at 8:47 pace. After all the adventures the foot felt the same as it did before the start. This is encouraging. P.M. 2 with Jenny in 18:34. Julia ran the first 1.5 in 14:23. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:01. Measure a part of the course for the Spring Creek Elementary 5 K with Sarah. Then it got late, so I ran 1.357 to the car in 11:35. Thanks to the wheel I knew exactly how far it was.
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