January 20 training run

Still on track to attempt a 5k in February.

I have fallen into the pattern of running on the days I visit mom. Maybe it is the stress of watching her decline slightly, week-by-week.

I followed the by-now usual format of running one mile and then the remaining mile in 1/2 mile splits with a 100 yard walking recovery at the one and 1.5 mile mark. I still run the full two miles.

As before, the slowest 1/2 mile split was my first one at 7:34

The fastest split was 5:45 and that was the last half-mile.

Overall, the training run was done at a 40:40 5k pace.

A short story

My fastest 5k was about 24 minutes and it was when I was about fifty.

I weighed an honest 165 pounds and was running about twenty miles a week.

I remember being passed by two different people.

One was a high-school aged girl wearing cherry-red, satin shorts. She was showing off her new finger-nails to her posse as they passed me and conversing. She was obviously not breathing very hard. Literally nothing more than a brisk walk in the park for her. She did not LOOK like a runner...no muscle definition in her legs. A healthy amount of adipose tissue deposited in all of the feminine places.

The other memorable person who passed me looked like he was seventy. I assumed he was recovering from a stroke as he had a very asymmetrical stride.

His stride had him crabbing with his left-side forward. The other thing that was notable was that he was "sliding" his feet with the soles of his feet never more than 3/4" above the pavement.

Running differs from walking in that twice during each full stride neither foot is in contact with the ground. A walking stride involves at least one of your feet (alternating, of course) in contact with the ground at all times and usually involves a locked knee on the contact leg.

So Slider had a very fast stride-rate since the time-of-flight is closely related to the height your C-of-G rises with each stride. And he crabbed.

By now, all of the readers who are runners are snickering. Key word "...passed...". The old dude recovering from a stroke with the goofy stride passed me and never looked back.

They were both running faster than I was.

Of the two, I spent more time thinking about Slider. Most of my running was on dirt trails and on dirt roads with potholes. Floating high above the running surface makes a ton of sense when the surface is rough and there are features that will trip you.

Clearly, Slider ran on very smooth surfaces and his stride was optimized for that. The race was held on a blacktopped pedestrian trail.

---End short story---

The last 1/2 mile of my training run is fairly flat and the road surface is less cratered than the other parts.

I made a conscious effort to do three things in that last 1/2 mile:

• Raise my feet no higher than necessary
• Make up the difference by picking up my pace-rate
• Throw back my shoulders and lift my head and BREATH: Full inhale, full exhale, no lolly-gagging while doing it

A 5:45/half-mile pace would be a 35:40 5k, not that I think I could sustain that pace for that long...but it is fun to think about!