The Big Three

A three-mile run usually isn't a big thing, but this morning it was. Angela agreed to get up early and go out on a run with her grandfather. In an effort to take advantage of a little cooler weather, we started at 7:30, but "cooler" is a relative thing. It was already hot and humid. The goal was to cover 3 miles on the run, even if there was some walking involved. If she made it, it would be Angela's longest sustained run.

We decided to run on the Longview Lake trail, which I hadn't used for at least 6 years. My recollection was that there was a fair amount of shade along the trail. Bad memory. Most of the part of the trail we were using was sunny, and I knew that would be the first big obstacle to Angela's 3-mile goal. She's not used to running in the heat.

We started off, and I was almost startled at the early pace. Angela was running at well under a 10 min. pace - around 9:30. After a couple minutes, I reigned her in some. Still, the first split was 9:54, which I considered too fast for me, much less Angela, considering the temperature. As the experience runner, I kicked myself for allowing her to make the 3 mile goal more difficult to reach than it needed to be.

Before starting out we'd agreed to walk between miles, so when the first mile ended, Angela was ready for the breather. I kept the GPS going much of time as we walked a good quarter of a mile, so by the time we started running again the pace was up pretty high.

We ran out to the 1.5 mile mark and turned around. From that point on we walked every half mile with the GPS off. Mile two was 12:03 pace, and I could tell Angela was paying for that fast first mile. She welcomed every walk segment, drank plenty of water, and allowed me to slow the pace.

The last mile was 10:22, which would have been a nice opening split. Angela wanted to know if three miles would be the same as the race we are planning to run in August. Well, yes, I said, except for that little one-tenth more. I asked if she wanted to run that one-tenth, too, but she was satisfied with an even 3. Goal attained!

All in all it was a very good run for Angela under extreme conditions. Take 15 degrees off the temperature and I'm confident we would have completed the three miles in under 30 min. As it was, we did the 3 miles in 32.23, for a 10:47 pace. Very respectable.

It's going to be a good race in August.