TransTo4: 2-2

3 miles in something like 24:47 (8:15/mile)

Apparently I can't tie my shoes and remember to start my watch within 2 minutes of each other. Forgot to start my watch until what I'm going to estimate was about 1:30 into the run.

This was a fast weekday run. 6 of us from the club went out. The 4 gazelles took off, and my boss and I ran together until I started picking up the pace. Our starting pace was pretty aggressive since I got sucked in by the gazelles, and I just tried to keep them in sight for the first half or the run. They were going around the lake, so at 1.5 miles I lost my rabbit, but by then I was warm.

I've had a couple of conversations, and read a couple of things that talk about how the first mile or two are the hardest. Every run. I think I agree with that. The first mile at least anyway. Even if I warm up, it seems to take that long for my breathing to settle down, all the assorted niggling things to settle out, to get my pace, etc... Saying it sucks might be a little much, but if my runs felt that way the entire time, I'd be running a lot less. :)

I realized that I really noticed this on the two 'long' training runs I did before the races. The 5 and 5.5 miler had really rough first miles or so, but at the end I was able to push a little, and certainly felt I could have gone a little further. Just a reminder to myself (and maybe others) to push past that first little bit, because it does get easier.

I would have posted this after my run yesterday, but I got sidetracked doing my job (I know, shock, horror), and when I was trying to estimate how much to add for my missed time, I spent some time looking at my mile1, mile2 split differences, and noted they seemed excessively consistent. (I know that sounds odd, but I've had a lot of runs when I really felt like I was keeping a nice consistent pace the entire run) So I remapped my route. Twice. On 2 different tools (yes they both use gmaps as a basis so it's not completely different, but it's the best I can do)(gmap-pedometer.com, mapmyrun.com)

Turns out my 1 mile marker is about 1.05 miles. That accounts for a big chunk of the difference between my splits. It also explains why my mile2, mile 3 splits are off as well. Not as much as the first mile, which make sense given our earlier discussion, but still.

The other thing is that my 3 mile loop appears to actually by 3.1 miles. (As I type that I think I may have identified that months ago and willfully ignored it. Don't remember, and don;t have the time to reread all my blog entries to find out. :)) So, now that's good from the perspective of speed and fitness and all that, but it completely flummoxes the accuracy of my data. :) So now the question is: do I willfully ignore the problem, do I run the newly corrected 3 mile route instead? Or as I just thought of; do I just run my current route with corrected mileage points. I thinks I've got it. Thanks all. :)

My weekday route, if you're interested, is HERE. This is the corrected version, the normal run actually continues along to the house boat with the light grey roof to the northwest of the bridge, then back down. If it's not in hybrid mode, switch to it, it's much more fun. :) I walk to the start from a couple of block further south as a warmup and start there on the bike walking trail. For some reason the map won't let me resave it at the start, so the point that comes up is the turnaround at halfway...

splits:
mile1 - 8:31 (corrected by adding 1:30 to recorded split)
mile2 - 8:05
mile3 - 8:11