Surveillance Junkie

Grellan notes in a comment that he is a "surveillance junkie." I suppose we all are. I have noted the withdrawal symptoms, or at least the unease, I feel when I am on a run without my watch. Much of my assessment of how a run went hangs on the numbers that my watch emits. The same with regard to my planning of how far and how hard I go. As I get older, and in anticipation of getting slower, I think more of what running would look like away from the temporal gaze. That is woodchuck.

But that wasn't today. This morning I was under double temporal surveillance. I got to the track at 6:50 and had until 7:30 to get a run in so I could get ready for an early meeting, and had a brace of five 1000m reps (w/ 4oom rec) on tap to do in a 3:30 to 3:35 target range. This is better known as 5000 meters on the installment plan.

I switched back and forth between clock time and stopwatch time. Because of the limited clock time I only did warmups/strides for a mile. This was less than ideal but good enough to get me going. For once I underestimated what I could run. Reps went by in 3:30; 3:23; 3:25; 3:24 and 3:22. 5k in five easy payments - 17:04. I obviously felt strong, and for this morning the clock was my friend.

Beautiful sunrise over the Interboro High track to boot. 5.5 miles total, will try to get some easy miles in this afternoon as well. Overall time was 40:52; which means I got back to the car right at 7:31.