It was lightly raining, cold, and silent. No one else was at the high school – none of my classmates. I arrived a bit late about 6:30 PM. Beforehand I had plotted out a 2 mile warmup loop and headed out on it. I ran slowly to get my ankle loosened up. It was moderately tight as I finished the loop, in other words, I knew it was there when arrived back at the school’s track. On the track I was to do 3 x 2000m or three times 5 loops of the track at 15K pace which for me is 8:30/mile or 2:07/loop. After each I was to run a 1 loop recovery making it a total of 6 loops of the track. I ran with a small flashlight so I could see my watch, and listened to podcasts on my iPod to make the time pass more quickly. The first set: 2:07, 2:08, 2:07, 2:08, 2:08 for 10:38 which is right on the mark. The second set: 2:09, 2:02, 2:01, 2:04, 2:04 for 10:20 which is a bit fast, but when I saw the initial 2:09 I sped up worried that I was slowing down. Then I had trouble reading the watch with rain on the bezel. The third set: 2:06, 2:03, 2:04, 2:03, 2:03 for 10:19 which was again a bit faster, because my ankle felt normal and I was wanted to get the class work done and over with. After the track I again ran the same 2 mile cool down. Overall I was happy to have gotten the work done on a wet, cold, dark and ugly night.
