So a week or so ago I was running with my friend, our usual run from ADEQ on Tuesday mornings. I was feeling pretty good and we were rounding the parking lot to top off our mileage, just talking about normal things. I felt like we were moving pretty good and looked at my Garmin and the pace said 7:42. I did a double take, looked at the device again and sure enough...we were doing a sub 8 minute pace as we finished off our run. I told my friend this and he said, "yeah, it does feel kinda fast" . I was surprised that after 11 weeks of hardly no running, a few weeks of very conservative running, I slipped into a sub 8 so easily. I figured mostly because I was running with my friend and we have a tendency to push each other when we run and try to hurry and get done before time to head home. So I just wrote it off as a fluke.
Earlier this week, I was running my normal Two Rivers run and experienced the same thing. I was coming back toward my car, rounding a corner, looked at my Garmin and saw 7:40 again. Wait, I'm alone....why am I running a 7:40? Maybe I saw that wrong, because I definitely did not feel like I was pushing very hard. I completed my run, want to my usual park bench and stretched before driving home.
So I went out again this morning to perhaps mimic the same conditions that produced the 7:40 phenomenon, I was going to pay attention to my pace during the whole run this time. The run started out very conservatively. About 9:40 going out, It was humid and dark, very dark. I seem to naturally slow down in the darkness. I made a right turn on the other side of the bridge, circled around the end of the island. While I made my way into the first dark section of forest I could see deer crossing the path. I slowed to keep away from them. As I ran past, one decided I was not enough of a threat to move and she just stood on the trail while I ran around her. After the loop, or the "Needles eye", I made my way to the open section before the second forest area, still pulling around a 9:40. I ran all the way into the park, turned left looped around the West side walk way and then back. I was reading low 9 minute pace. I guess gradually getting warmed up plus the rising sun helped me run faster. I could see better so that helped. So I still had not seen anything under 8 minutes. I was beginning to think I had been imagining the whole thing.
So I continued back out of the park, passing other walkers and runners who had gradually began to make their way into the area. Through the swamp, the hay field, the swamp again, then to the pine forest. This is where the magic seems to happen.....While coming back I saw my pace dip into the low 8's a couple times. I was thinking..."hmmmm This may happen..." After exiting the pine forest, there is a small hill you run down to make the curve around the end of the island. This is where the pace drops, like magic, I looked down and saw the 7:40! It was there, it was real! And it did not feel difficult at all! I looked down again, 7:31!!! I just kept going down...then I hit the hill at the foot of the bridge and I slowed. The hill is the where the magic ends. I'm going to now call that part of Two Rivers park, The Magic Curve! Let it be written, let it be done! :)
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