Frozen Sole 1718-01

"The agony"

The Frozen Sole is a local running race series. The third Sunday of every month from October to March. It's a 5 mile rectangular loop (8K). It's low-key. People run for all different reasons. I've used it for a an easy group run, and I've used for a full-out speed test. My best time was 35:32 on March 20, 2016.

I've slowly been getting back into running, after nearly a one year injury-forced hiatus. I was looking forward to this Sunday's Frozen Sole with bitter-sweet anticipation. It would signal a return to "FAST", but with that comes DISCOMFORT. 8K is short enough that it still hurts to go hard.

I wasn't sure how "fast" fast would be, but I have come to the realization that I do need at least 10 minutes to warm up properly. Having dilly-dallied in the morning, arriving 5 minutes before start time meant that the warm-up would be the first 10 minutes of the race.

We set off at 9:03. The first K was fairly easy at 5:26; then I upped it a bit to 4:57. We made the first corner to Highway 2, and I upped the pace to "uncomfortable". Which turned out to be 4:26. I held it more or less for another km, but then on the next turn up Paragon Road, I was dropping off to 4:46 and 4:48. I made the 3rd turn, and I was just running on fumes. I wanted it to be over with so badly. I channeled my inner Lionel, and pushed hard up the hill for Km 7 at 4:40; and then held it as long as I could on the last downhill km. Final "official" time was 38:10. Far from a PB. But tied for "personal worst" on a full-out race effort from January 2014.

STILL, happy to be running again, and happy to be experiencing that self-imposed discomfort running hard brings.