Sierra

Sierra
Sierra

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Thursday, 07/26/12 Boulder Creek Path


10.7 miles/500 vert./1:20/7:30 pace/160 avg. HR 

A run on the creek path is hardly worthy of mention, but I felt particularly good today.  Started from Potts Field a little later than I had hoped (a bit after 10am and it was already getting a bit hotter than I would have liked), headed West on the Boulder Creek Path and was immediately feeling good, so I started pushing a little bit.  The miles were clicking by surprisingly fast and the uphill gradient barely seemed noticeable for the most part.

Once the path turned to dirt West of town, I was as little surprised to get passed by a fit/fast looking runner (I was wearing headphones and did not hear him coming).  He gave me props for pushing the double baby jogger and shared that he too had been there before, just with a single jogger.

Even though I was already going what I thought to be a good pace, he sort of woke me up a bit and I upped the pace a notch, staying a few strides behind him all the way until he turned around, a mile or so later, a bit short of my turn around at the end of the path.  I was a little bummed, as I was enjoying the fast pacing and was looking forward to chasing (racing) him going back down.  This effort had my HR in the 180's, which is somewhat unusual for me nowadays, which felt awesome and surprisingly sustainable.  Getting passed was a very welcome thing, as it really made me push harder than I would have otherwise.

Kept a reasonably steady tempo on the descent, but was using the brakes at times to keep my speed in check once I got to the steeper cement sections.  I was starting to feel a bit cooked from the heat, but was able to maintain a respectable pace over the final few miles, knowing that it will come in handy next month on the lower section of Barr and Ruxton Ave.

7:30 pace is nothing to get fired up about, but considering I was pushing 97 lbs (24lbs per girl, then the Chariot loaded with essentials, like water, food, camera, wallet, keys, teddy bears, puppies, hats, sunglasses, sandbox toys, spare tubes, pump etc…), it was certainly one of my more solid runs in a while.