I ran out on the Pittman wash today. On the way there I took a detour to drop off some things at Kimia's work which I will count as .6 miles (more than .5 but less than .7 is what I figured). Later on in the run I ran a 5 mile tempo in 27:28 (5:24, 5:28, 5:36, 5:41, 5:19). I am glad that I was only trying to hit marathon pace effort on this tempo and not faster, because the conditions were brutal. There was a strong wind that was gusting throughout the tempo, so even when I thought I should have a tail wind it still felt like the wind was in my face. There was also a fair amount of rolling and climbing (although the course gave me a net drop). The general layout of the tempo was as follows: mile 1, gradual downhill and fairly straight; mile 2, mild net downhill but rolls a lot, includes running through a tunnel with a couple turns; mile 3, zero net uphill/downhill but has 14 turns and a 180, plus two nasty uphill sections with corresponding downhill that I couldn't take advantage of due to the turns; mile 4 was the same as mile 2 but in reverse, while mile 5 was the same as mile 2 following a 180 at the beginning. I was rather happy with the 5:36 on the third mile considering the circumstances, but it did feel like the wind died down during that mile so it may not have been as difficult as it seemed. The first mile should have been much faster than it was, because that mile gives me the majority of the net downhill during the tempo, but that was the worst mile in terms of the wind. Miles 4 and 5 were also pretty bad in terms of wind, but the wind was a little weaker during miles 2 and 3. I had to push fairly hard during mile 5 in order to get under 5:20 for that mile, but I was happy with how relaxed I felt when I sped up despite fighting a headwind. Total mileage for the main portion of the run was 13.5 miles, plus the detour (so 14.1 miles total) to finish with a total time of 1:37:40.
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