I'm Not Fast

Yesterday was the first night of the trail running series at work, and it was full of ouch.

First a word about the course, it's about 3.3 miles, and it's really 2 courses. The first half is awesome. Hilly, really technical, singetrack. Sidehills. Switchbacks. Small stream crossings. It's great. The second half is nothing but hamstring popping, calf exploding carriage roads. OK, there are 2 short singletrack sections, but the majority is baby's bottom smooth carriage roads with small rolling hills. Gee, guess which half I like better?

I did a 3-mile warm up. Then I did my "race." It hurt. I don't have a single fast twitch muscle left in my body. I felt great for the first half. Trying to run "fast" on the singletrack was a blast. The second half was a whole other story. Every time I tried to push it I could feel my entire body tightening up. There's was a distinct threshold of pace where I felt like my body was going to explode. It was a really strange feeling. And, by strange, I mean painful. Everyone was worried about the first half, but I was worried about the second half. And, I was right. I am decidedly not fast. Then again, I haven't been training for fast. I've been training for survival. But this was ridiculous. My final time was 26:33, which works out the a moderately embarrassing 8:02 per mile.

I want to say I don't care because I haven't been training for such a short distance, but that would be a lie. I care. And, I'm kind of cranky about it.