Friday, 9/12: about 6 miles in 55:10 with lots of climbing
I am in California for a conference at UCSD, staying just North of there in the lovely little town of Del Mar. I couldn't help but notice as I rode the shuttle on the way in that my hotel sits just a mile or so away from Torrey Pines State Reserve, a place with breathtakingly beautiful ocean views like this one:
Thanks to Flickr user informedmindstravel for that lovely shot.
The profile of the run was pretty brutal. Picture the letter "U." Big downhill, short valley (across the beach entrance of Torrey Pines) and then up a long, long climb to the top of the hill and the entrance to the famous Torrey Pines Golf Course, home of this year's U.S. Open. I made it to the top, thinking that if Tiger could play 90 holes with a broken leg and beat a world-class field, I could certainly struggle through this run.
On the way up, I was on the bike path that runs along the 5. This made the hill longer, with the pitch more gradual. Well over a mile of climbing. The way down was a bit better, as I found a bike path that went through the Reserve itself and afforded the kind of spectacular views you saw in the photo above. That road was steeper, but shorter too.
I saw lots and lots of cyclists on the way. I envied them their mechanical advantage today.
In truth, this was the sort of workout I probably should have been doing more of to train for the marathon. Why? Lactate threshold. Basically I ran for 45 minutes at a decent pace and with enough climbing that I was fatigued. Then, to finish, I ran another mile uphill to get back to the hotel. I stopped beforehand, let my heart rate come down, reset my watch, and then pushed the pace all the way home. Did the last leg in just under 10 minutes which doesn't sound like a fast pace for a mile, but you should see this mile!
2 comments:
What kind of wacky conference are you at there, Bill? Looks like lots of people from all over the place, right?
Yeah, it's an international conference for activity theory researchers. My first time at this event, but it is impressive in terms of it's interdisciplinary nature as well as the number of international participants. I think U.S. participants are only 18% of the total.
Post a Comment