March 10th, Friday
Ideal conditions; 75*, overcast, gentle breeze and scenery on the beach improves markedly as Spring Break arrives.
An interesting run today of 6 miles in 1 hour and 22 minutes. The goal was to run some 400 meter intervals at 8:30 pace. Here is what happened. I jogged for 20 minutes to warm up. I ran 8 x 400 meters at about 8:30 pace in a 3 minute cycle. This was in fact the first true interval workout I have tried in this journey toward the National Senior Games 1500m championship. It went pretty will I thought. All this happened while running south, and I lost track of the distance. So, when I turned around I was more than 3 miles from home. Now, I never intended to run a 6 mile workout today. So I started to jog the long journey back down the beach. Eventually I decided to walk because it looked really far. Then I had the brilliant idea to take my shoes and socks off and soak my legs in the cool, stimulating ocean surf as I walked. That was very refreshing, but I was making very little progress on my way back. With the Saint Augustine Pier, which was my starting point, looming far in the distance; I put my socks and shoes back on and began to run again because I was anxious to get home. Remarkably my legs had recovered pretty dramatically from my work out, and I was able to run the remaining one mile home in about 9:35. I was pleasantly surprised, exhausted and exhilarated.