The Great Blue Heron

Ally was up early this morning, and as awake, I decided to get a couple hours of work done (my efficiency at that time of the day is incredible). Once complete, I was out for my morning jog. I can remember not too long ago when after a 40’ run I’d call it a day, now it’s only a prelude to the main event.

It was overcast, spitting occasionally but depending when I looked I could still make out the sun through the clouds, a typical spring day in Victoria. After yesterdays massage and a light stretch last night, my legs felt good and I needed to remind myself to ease up, saving it for tonight. While running through the west side of the park something caught my eye and I looked up to see over 30 Great Blue Herons gliding off the tree tops, it reminded me of something out of Jurassic Park (all I had to do now was watch out for the Velocoraptors). If interested, here is a link to a live webcam of the birds.
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I’m still recovering from the workout so you’ll have to forgive me. First off, I need to thank two people, 1) Carter for helping me through some critical portions of the workout and 2) Ally, for making dinner this evening… thank you both!

The workout called for 4 x 2-miles on 11:10 with 2’ recovery. As I was discussing with Carter on our jog over, I didn’t quite no what to make of the times, or the w/o for that matter. I suppose it was of little consequence as I was about to find out. Arriving at the track, we changed into our flats and couldn’t help but feel the steady the effects of a storm system blowing over the island, running down the home stretch was gong to be attention-grabbing.

I quickly dialed in the rhythm on the first rep and enjoyed the perceived half-marathon pace (11:08).

The second one was a tad off-putting, whether losing focus or not relaxing I was a bit off the mark. It could have been that I was trying to figure a way to make the 8 loops manageable, breaking them down in my head and trying to fool myself into thinking I was doing less. But, whatever way I sliced & diced it always came to 3200m. This rep felt more like 10-k pace, but less then 10-k effort; I was conscious of having a couple extra gears (11:13).

The third rep was the workhorse; this is where the fun began. I felt like I was running 10-k pace at 10-k effort, painfully comfortable… numb. Closing the last 200 I thought I had time to make up, I’ll have to pay more attention next time (11:05).

The last lap as Carter said, “was gravy”, the work had all been done. Jogging home mind you was an entirely new experience. I can only assume it was lactic acid, but every joint and muscle in my body was anesthetized and had the responsiveness of molasses (11:01).

5:33 (158, 163)
5:35 (163, 166)

5:35 (156, 163)
5:38 (161, 163)

11:05 (161, 166)

5:33 (160, 166)
5:28 (166, 169)

Training:
A.M. a very smooth 40:24, 6:46 mi/pace
P.M. 1:31:41 with 4x 2-miles, AHR 146, MAX 169