March 6, 2007
Sunny. 60. Light winds. I had most of the afternoon off, so I decided to treat myself and drive up to Smithville Lake to investigate the trail system there. I'd read that it was very good, but it was better than than. More than 10 miles of 8-feet-wide, well-marked paved trails through the woods and next to the lake. Beautiful, really. It'll be spectacular when all the foliage returns. The course is rolling, but I did not encounter any hills that were walkers, at least on a 10 mile run. I'll come back here for Saturday's 20-miler.
I did no real speed work today, but just tried to maintain a steady pace of between 9 and 9:30. It was a tempo run, I guess. I didn't want to go too fast on the downhills and level sections, and I tried not to work too hard on the uphills, and for the most part it worked out. I even experimented with the run-a-mile, walk-a-minute strategy for the last five miles. I averaged about 9:12 for those miles, and 9:09 overall.