No PB in the Horsetooth Half

No Half PB for me in the Horsetooth Half Marathon.  No sub-2:00 hour finish.  Not even a course PB.  Oh-for-three on my goals, no fun.

 Last weekend I ran at Pineridge Reservoir and the wind was all over the place.  At times it was 15-20 MPH, at times calm.  At times I ran into the wind at one end of the loop and with the wind, while going in the same direction, at the other end of the loop.  I hit wind in some spots that were calm the loop before and vice versa.  It was just difficult to figure out. 

Such has been my running.  In the past 2 weeks I've run a 5K PB, a Towers road PB, had one of the uglier long runs in months and ran my slowest half marathon in 3 years.  I've had all the runs to fill in the gaps in between too.  It's been difficult to figure out.

I suppose there's probably some wisdom in here regarding adequate recovery after hard and fast efforts.  Probably some more wisdom regarding riding the ups and downs while increasing mileage volume.  Maybe even some snarky comments to be made regarding pavement pounding.  For now I'm just kind of bummed.  That will probably change tomorrow when I go out for a run.  Wonder which way the wind will be blowing?

Number Nine ... Number Nine ... Number Nine ...

So I'm seeing a trend in recent short race results. 8:25 is a popular pace. That's what I ran for the Tortoise & Hare 12K last weekend. It's what I ran for the Tortoise & Hare 8K on Superbowl Sunday. And I ran 8:23 paces the previous 2 races, a 4M and a 10K. The other handful of short races I ran in 2010 (all the way back to an 8:31 pace in the Resolution Run in Dec 2009) have all been in a tight window of about 10 seconds a mile. I suppose there are several ways to interpret this. Not getting any better ... Not getting any worse ... Pace not dropping off with distance ... best I can hope for doing so little speedwork ... But I've decided to interpret it as 8:25 is just my road pace. I'd be pretty happy with a 6.5 minute PB at the Horsetooth Half. ;-)