Four Miles at the Y

This was the first run since the Dick Beardsley Marathon, but by no means a recovery run because the marathon was six days ago and I have long since recovered.  This was not a run but a four-mile walk, just as fast as I could, for 12 of the 13 laps that make a mile on the YMCA track.  Then I ran the last lap.  Total time for four miles was 50:14, for an average pace of 12:34.

Steve & Don 3 Weeks Ago

All of this depends on the accuracy of the YMCA's claim that the track is 13 laps per mile.  I've run there dozens of times now, over several years, and never seriously questioned that figure, though I sort of suspect that it the true figure would be slightly higher than 13.

In any case I found it easy to count laps today, even without a counter, because it took almost exactly one minute for me to traverse a lap, sometimes 59 seconds, so the end of a mile occurred at the end of the lap that occurred after 12 minutes.

Today I ran the 13th lap of each mile, instead of walking, and each of those running laps took 39 or 40 seconds. That means that the running laps  took almost exactly 2/3 as long as the walking laps.  Therefore, if the walking laps are 13 minutes/mile, then the running laps are  8:40 /mile.  Faster than I thought - maybe faster than I should go.  But the result today was just fine!  No pains, no complaints.

Splits:  12:39, 12:34, 12:32, 12:29, total 50:14.