Ignore that distance, it was 10.4 miles. GPS in the Watershed is always off.
Today was the Summer Blast at the Redmond Watershed put on by Northwest Trail Runs. The Watershed and this run are special to me since I ran my first ever trail run, a 10-miler, at the Watershed, did my first marathon at the Watershed and ran my fastest half there too. Plus I spent a lot of time running in this park when I lived in Redmond, it was my primary training ground.
I was originally signed up for the half thinking maybe I’d be ready for it by today but alas, I was not. I stopped running for the most part after dropping weight again so since the Lord Hill 10k I’d run maybe twice and those were 4 mile runs. So I hadn’t even made it half of a half marathon in distance yet. On top of that we are heading to Mount Rainier on Monday to do the Northern Loop and I didn’t want to be totally wiped out before starting that. So, I bumped down to the 10-mile run figuring I could bail at 5 if I needed to.
I showed up early to finish with setup and then did registration for most of the events until the last few minutes when I had to go get ready to run. I wanted to be at the front of the pack so I could get some space at the start and not end up in a traffic jam. The weather was perfect and the trails there so smooth that I decided to do the run in my Luna Osos, I’ve done most events this year in these sandals.
The start was fast, I was moving with a group of quick 5-milers and was shocked to look at my watch about a mile in to find we’d been going at just under a 7-minute mile pace. I slowed down but by then I was sort of in a gap where I could run w/o people all around me. I finished the first 5-mile lap at just about 39 minutes which wasn’t my fastest 5-mile time ever but was definitely in line with me having my fastest 10-mile time. On the second lap I took advantage of the downhill and flat sections to try and keep up a decent pace and slowed down a bit on the uphills. When I turned on the main trail heading back to the finish I still had 20 minutes to go to beat my previous best time so I knew I was in good shape, it was only 1.5 miles to go. The hill slowed me down some but still, I hit the half mile to go mark and still had a good buffer. I did get passed by the #4 guy on the uphill finally so that put me in 4th place instead of a podium finish but I decided to just focus on my PR and not the other runners. I crossed over the finish in 1:23:12 for the 10.4 mile course which beat my best previous 10 mile time by over 5 minutes and if you take out the 0.4 miles I beat it by over 6 minutes and I managed an 8:00 mile pace even. Not bad for someone who hadn’t urn more than 10k previously.
Next I may try for that half in September at the Cedar River Run, it is a flat course so would be a good one to try and PR on for that distance. My previous best is 1:54 so I’m sure I can take that down to around 1:45-1:50 if I do some more distance between now and then.
Other good news, my 4000 calorie diet seems to be working. In two weeks I managed to gain 4.6 pounds putting me up over 155 for the first time since May of this year. I’m hoping that trend continues even though I’ll possibly drop some backpacking this week but should recover. I’ll keep on eating a lot and working out with weights and doing minimal running over the next month or so. The funny thing is I listened to Paleo Runner Aaron Olson’s podcast on low-mileage running this week and I kind of agree with him, do enough miles but not too many miles. It is working for me running only 1-2 days per week just to stay in shape without pushing so many miles that I overdo.