Man, That Was Tough

I met up with Brian King and Steve Schroeder this evening for an attempt at something Brian and I have done only once before. Two years ago, at the peak of our fitness before Houston, we covered the 3.55 mile Greatwood loop twice plus a mile out and back in under one hour. Now, before you go calculate that it would require only a 6:35 pace to achieve such a feat, the Greatwood loop is not flat, not straight, and is not easy. If we cover our standard two loops in under 50 minutes that's a good day indeed. Under 49 is very rare. Under 48 happens about twice a year, and always one of us alone. It's almost impossible to have two people ready for that on the same day. And we don't do the 9.1 distance that often. When we do it's 1:04 at best. Except two years ago. But today we tried it again.

When Brian and I did it two years ago we hit the first loop in 24 minutes flat, then 23:03 on the second loop, then 6:21 going out, and 5:57 coming back in. We've since re-measured the mile out and found it to be about 20 or 30 feet short so I knew the mile out and back today wouldn't be the place to make up ground, or at least not like when we turned the 59:21 two years ago. So we wanted to do the first two loops in no more than 47 minutes, if possible. Keep in mind, my 2nd best two loop time is only 46:56, so it was going to have to be all business from the first step - and it was.

Steve and I were red-lining near oxygen debt from the beginning but tried our best to hang on to Brian, who must have eaten his Wheaties this morning. He set a furious pace and we hit the first loop in 23:15, a 45 second improvement over two years ago. Brian was maybe five seconds in front of me after one and Steve was maybe five seconds behind me. I felt like we had a little wiggle room and could actually slow down a bit on loop #2, but apparently no one told Brian. He ran stronger and stronger and I was helpless to answer. I ran as hard as I could without blowing up and could only watch him pull away. Halfway through the second loop he was 20 seconds ahead of me and it only got worse from there. The good thing though, was that I wasn't slowing down - he was just on fire. He was 33 seconds ahead of me at the completion of loop 2. He turned a 22:39 (one of only three sub 23 minute loops that any of us has ever posted). I clocked a 23:12 for loop 2 but just didn't have another gear for the mile out. I hit the turn around at a disappointing 6:35. By my calculations I would need about a 6:16 to equal my time from two years ago. That was gonna be tough but at least I was pretty sure that sub one hour was in the bag. It certainly was for Brian, who was so far ahead I could barely see him. Shortly after I turned around for the final mile in I saw Steve heading in to the turn. He probably wasn't going to make it under one hour but dang, he was giving it his best shot. I hadn't seen him behind me in some time so I wasn't sure how he was doing.

I clocked a 6:24 final mile into the wind, which was not very helpful tonight. I was totally spent. I didn't quite equal the 59:21 from two years ago, but came close, wind and all. Brian posted a 58:37, I posted a 59:28, and Steve got in just a bit over 1:01. I could not have gone one second faster. I'm still whipped. But what a workout. Now it's some light milage tomorrow, off Friday, then tempo Saturday.