First Mile is Slowest

That’s why we warm up for a short race, of course. A coach may say "the shorter the race, the longer the warmup." I guess our bodies need a warmup to stretch out muscles and get everything moving. I do warm up a mile or so for races of 10k or shorter, and maybe even two miles for a one-mile race. But not for longer races - the first mile or two are the warmup and I don’t want to spend valuable energy on distance that doesn’t count.

We ran indoors at the club again, six miles, and I tried not to look at my watch much until near the end of each mile. I usually reckon a mile by my watch, knowing that a pace of 9 minutes per mile is exactly 40 seconds per lap, with 13.5 laps to a mile. The watch will tell me at the end of each lap whether I am ahead of that pace, behind it, or right on. Today I counted laps on my fingers until I got close to a mile. I wanted to run a pace that just felt good, and pretty much succeeded except for the last mile which I intentionally pushed a bit.

The first mile was indeed the slowest, then the second and third were fast, with succeeding miles slowing a bit, except the final mile. Breathing was easy throughout, four footfalls per full breath, except for the final mile when it increased to three. I had a latte with milk just before this morning run, but no breakfast. That helps a lot - I don’t have as much running energy when my stomach is full of food.

Splits: 8:49, 8:30, 8:26, 8:33, 8:36, 8:05, total 50:48, overall pace 8:30. Nothing hurts. Looks like I've recovered from the marathon ten days ago and maybe even begun to reap the benefits. Nice!



Last night's DEX dinner (low carb): Wild-caught alaskan salmon, dill cheese, organic chard with a few dried cranberries, organic cashews, organic celery with organic peanut butter.