I think, therefore I pace

Today's run (street): 3.4 miles

Okay, now we're talking. After two days off from running, I went out this morning for the first time since the Dirty Sock race. I recognized the need to keep my focus on speed, despite having come off a fairly hard run. It's always a lot easier to do that if you're energized from the start. I was pleased that my legs responded to the challenge.

Everyone has a different default running pace. By that I mean the speed that you'd run if you didn't care about performance. It's probably what people think of as their easy pace. For some, "easy" is 8 minutes a mile. For me, it's much slower than that. When I need to run faster, I know I need to think about running fast. No zoning out and letting my legs carry me along. I've read that running performance is largely mental and my experience supports that.

Today I put priority on cadence and form. I focused on holding a faster pace than my body naturally wished to run. At times, my mind would drift and I'd detect a little deceleration. I dialed back up to "urgent" and tried to reengage my focus. This was not running at 10K race pace, but it was much faster than I've been averaging.

For all that work, I'm still worrying about my readiness to sustain that pace for 6.2 miles in Northport next month. With James Street, Waterside Ave. and Pumpernickel Hill in the mix, I'll have to do a lot more than I did today. But it was a start.