If you ever want to feel slow and out of shape, I have the perfect outing for you. Invite Max King and Andy Martin along for a tempo run on the Soda Creek Trail/ Green Lakes loop. This was actually Andy's idea, and I think I was brought along for one of three reasons: 1) Give them someone to drop, 2) Make certain I know I only won Haulin A because they didn't enter, or 3) Cougar bait.
The three of us headed out at 7AM, chauffeured to the trail head by Andy in his new (used) Mercedes, which has been rightfully nicknamed Princess. Little did I know the ride up would be the last time I would see these guys until the ride back down. Also it would be the last time I would have enough air to speak a full sentence. After a couple of minutes of stretching at the trail head, it was on. Martin took off like a 100m sprinter. Max insisted I follow, which meant not only did I have the pressure of keeping up with Martin, I also had Max on my heels. The first two miles went quick. My heart rate monitor was flipping out because my heart was beating through my chest. I think it was measuring each beat and the lasting vibrations/aftershocks from the beat. At first I wrote off the 186 as a fictitious read, but after two miles unchanged I started to believe it. Then all of a sudden, my legs became deprived of oxygen. Uh oh, we're only two miles into this 13 mile loop. At this point I stepped off the trail and encouraged Max to continue on by. At first he declined, but a few minutes later when he realized I was essentially running in place, he decided to go on through. I eventually reached mile three- 9:40 pace. This was 2:40 slower than my first two miles. Granted the hills got a bit steeper but still, it was like a punch in the gut. I figured now I was going to have to resort to survival mode. I trudged along putting forth a good effort, but comfortably within my limits. I began to ponder about all the possibilities for my abrupt collapse. Thyroid? Anemia? Sinus infection? Tired legs from last week's marathon? They all had merit. Eventually mile 4 passed and I was sub 9:00! Miles 5-8 were a bit better as the terrain flattened out giving me a little reprieve. I eventually reached the turn around at Green Lakes at 1:01:13, nearly 4 minutes after "the others," who kindly waited for me.
After knocking down a gel, it was time to finish up the run. Before the outing started, the goal was to break 1:30:00. This gave me 28:47 to complete somewhere around 4.5-5 miles. They let me lead the way down, I think so they could pass me again. We took off fast, hitting the first two miles at 5:44 avg pace. I once again stepped aside to let them pass and we finished up the last 2-3 at about the same pace. My final time was 1:27:39. "The others" finished in 1:23:44. I did take the liberty to age adjust our times, hoping it would help me out, but I still took last... Andy 1:23:24, Max 1:23:44, Jeff 1:24:48.
The good part of this run is that it was a PR for me. It was awesome to get up in the mountains and hit the trail hard with these guys. The bad, I ran a beautiful 13 mile loop and paid more attention to the rocks, tree roots and horse poop than I did the awesome mountain setting, beautiful lakes and tumbling creek. Overall, it was a great day though. I'm incredibly thankful to have these spectacular trails to run and fortunate to have great people to run them with.
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I had a slightly different take on it. The only reason I took off at the beginning was to provide the proverbial "carrot" for you to chase. I was merely doing my duty as coach to make sure you kept right on pace to achieve our goal of running under 1:30 for the loop.
And talk about taking off like a sprinter! I don't think Usain "Lightning" Bolt could have held on to your accelerations on the way back down the mountain. Even Max was saying we would have to really work all of the flats and little uphills to keep you in our sights.
Lastly, age-graded performance? Is that what it has come to? Now I'm going to have to try to beat you by about 2% on all of our training runs just so after your age-graded conversion, we can say that we tied.
Nice run though, a 1:27 on that course sets you up nicely for your goal at Twin Cities. Maybe we can go up there again about a week after I've been altitude training in the Rocky Mountains... The "carrot" should be even faster by then!
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