~6.6 miles @ ~8.7 min/mi

Venus gleaming low in the west reminds me of the Seneca Creek Greenway Trail Marathon in 2006 with Caren Jew. As evening dusk deepens two ladies share the Ludwig Field/Kehoe Track, each doing her own variety of intervals. Both carry iPods. One wears a bright pink shirt, the other is clad all in black except for a pink headband. Lines between the lanes of the track make me dizzy as I look along them down the straightaway in the gloom. A pair of gulls cry out as they cruise overhead. A police siren wails. I run through the shallow puddle of water in the middle of the north curve of the track, in a deliberate effort to spread it out so it will evaporate quicker. My duck-walk wet footprints are visible the next lap around, then fade. As the sky darkens into night a young man appears and sprints back and forth along one side of the stadium.

I arrive 4:30pm, with an hour until daughter Gray plans to finish work. Plan: ten 800 meters repeats, with half-lap ~2 minute recovery walk between each. The first few take ~3:45 and feel good. As the sun sets I feel chilly and push the pace. For the first four intervals I experiment with GPS set to take a data point every second, after which I change to "smart" recording mode. Jitters on the pace graph are visible for the more frequent data intervals, but overall accuracy seems identical. I stick to Lane #2, which according to various online sources should be 0.505 miles every two laps, i.e. ~407 meters/lap instead of 400 m, roughly ~2% long. The GPS trackfile says the distance is 0.52-0.54 miles, a bit longer yet. Splits by the GPS: 3:46 + 3:46 + 3:42 + 3:45 + 3:42 + 3:43 + 3:40 + 3:39 + 3:37 + 3:31. Does that actually forecasts marathon performance, changing m:ss to h:mm? I'm skeptical.

(cf. 2007-12-21 - Kehoe 800s, 2010-07-21 - LBJ 800s, 2010-11-21 - Ten 800m Repeats, ...) - ^z - 2012-01-22