As Good as it Gets

3:12 for that first Yasso. Not bad, but now I'll want to run the next nine 800's the same way. There's nothing worse than having your first interval (or mile, or whatever) be your best. The idea here is consistency and sustainability. Will I be able to? Last time - I've been doing them at 5:00 AM with friends every other Tuesday - I averaged about 3:15, and 3:13 the time before that. But this time, the weather's as good as it can be. It's in the forties, clear, and the winds are calm. The stars are bright. In fact, I call this as good as it gets.

Although there have been some hot days, including a couple record-breaking mid-nineties days last week, we've had some nice running weather lately as well. Saturday was very nice, and my semi-long 15-miler with Christine and Larry Orwin on the towpath went quite well. Christine and I ran the last 5 at 7:00 to 7:15 pace. Of course, I'm only trying, as always, to roll with the punches.

Today, Jack Reilly and Donna Hoffmeister are my companions on the mostly dark track. We had done the warmup together, but since we run at different speeds, our intervals are mostly by ourselves. My second one is... 3:12 again. This is still good, but I continue to wonder if I can keep it going.

Turns out that I can. I feel absolutely great, and I do keep running consistent times. I even throw in some 3:09's and some 3:07's. My average for the ten 800's winds up at 3:10.

Yup. That's as good as it gets.