A tropical change of pace

Sunset over the Gulf coast

Yesterday's run (southern FL): 4.1 miles

I've been at a conference for most of this week and due to travel and meetings I didn't get a chance to run on Wednesday. Thursday morning I met up with my friend CK for a run before the conference activities started. I was giving a talk in the afternoon and knew that this would probably be the only time that I could fit a workout into this trip. CK and I headed out from the hotel tracking south along a straight, palm tree-lined road. It was fairly early when we left and there was little traffic. The sun seems to rise later in southern Florida and the light at 7:00 AM was still at low intensity. Florida gets hot, even in January, but it was a cool 58 degrees with very little humidity when we started.

Compared with my recent paces, CK and I moved along at a moderately fast clip and I was pleased that I could hold up my end of the conversation even as we pushed against my comfort zone. We continued south for two miles then turned around for the return. On the way back we threw in some minute long tempos and before we knew it the resort was back in our sight. We ended up averaging 8:55 per mile for the run and it really seemed effortless.

The conference went well  and despite the 5" of snow that fell in New York this morning I was able to return home pretty much on schedule. I've only run about 6 miles this week so I'm hoping to make up for that this weekend. With all this fresh snow it looks like I'll be once again confined to neighborhood running on Saturday.  My next race is coming up in few weeks so I'll need to focus on training for that. Running with a high performer like CK showed me that I'm in good shape but I still need to step it up to be as competitive as I'd like to be. I want to achieve a new PR for 4 miles and this race takes place at the same location as my 10K PR so prospects are good. Performance will be my focus for now.