Crunching the hill numbers

Interesting run today in Discovery Park. Went just under six miles doing two laps of the loop trail in the park. It's a bit of a rolling trail course. Beautiful park though - it's also extremely popular, there was no shortage of other runners, but not in a way that makes you feel crowded or anything.

Please bear with me, reader, while I walk through the numbers to get to the point of what I learned today.

So when I came off the trail and looked at just the raw mile times for the second loop (when I was trying to put out the highest effort), I was a little disappointed because they were not as fast as some of the mile times I had been racking in on the six mile long runs up to this point. However, I've spent the last little bit really teasing apart the data from my 910XT to get a better understanding of what "went wrong". And the answer surprised me a bit.

My best actual time mile was the last almost mile when I was running a 13:19 mile pace. However, that is also mostly downhill (dropped 161 feet and climbed 21). Training peaks calculates a factor they call NGP which is basically taking the elevation gain or loss combined with your actual speed to generate what your pace would be if the terrain were flat. The NGP for that leg was 14:54, not great - but understandable. The next best full mile was a 14:24 actual time, with an NGP of 12:38. It was a rolling mile (+144, -125). Here's the interesting thing about that, it's my best NGP mile yet and I ran almost the whole mile. It also beat my previous best NGP of 13:30 when I did the Cowen park run a couple of weeks ago.

So, what did I learn from crunching all of the numbers. I am getting faster and I am running further. I have to be careful about the wall clock. While in a race, wall clock is all that matters, when I'm training and looking for improvements comparing a flat mile near Green Lake to a rolling mile at Discovery Park is comparing apples to pineapples. Both fruit, but nothing alike. I am definitely getting better and I need to cut myself some slack. Easier said than done, but the numbers do not lie.

I may be sore and tired tonight, but I also am showing improvement.

Back to the run - I run with great people who are very supportive and I hope I show them as much support as they show me on the run.

Tonight is RICE (everything is RICE with me right now!) and recovery. The ankle did OK  but I was having trouble on the up hill on the second lap because it's still weak and it was just getting tired on the run and I couldn't toe off hard to go up the hills.

Worked on fueling practice too. Took a Roctane before starting out, took a GU after the first lap, and then another GU when I finished. I felt like I still had the energy and it was really my heart rate and my ankle that kept me from pushing even harder. This is good though as the strength and cardiovascular endurance will get better and if I keep the muscles properly fueled they won't just completely die on me. As an aside, GU peppermint rocks! I just wish it wasn't just a seasonal flavor! Roctane Cherry Lime is a 6/10. GU Mandarin Orange is a 5/10 (not bad, not great). I'm cycling through some different flavors and types of fueling on the longer bike training and the runs to get more practice in! See, I did learn from my triathlon!

Moral of the story tonight ... be very careful pinning your hopes, measure of success, and self worth on one number. Look at the big picture.