First Run Test of season

Alright, I just completed my first running time trial this evening. It was on a paved bike/hike trail around a local lake/park. I had never run the route before, nor had I even been to the park other than driving by. Probably poor planning on my part, but it worked out.

The route I took was 2.6miles. I originally thought the route was around 4.2 miles when I was looking at it online, but it turns out I was looking at a park with the same name in a different part of the state. However, 2.6 miles is plenty for a repeatable test and I enjoyed the route.

My fiancee planned to meet me at the park so she could run at the same time, so we met up parked our cars across the street from the park. I was going to carry my car key and she was going to lock her keys in my car. Unfortunately, I grabbed the wrong key and ended up locking both our keys in my car...oops!

After waiting an hour to get AAA to unlock it for us (Actually it was the Rescue Rangers than unlocked it, lol) she no longer had time to run and headed for home. I was on my own from there. So now onto the run itself.

I felt rushed after wasting so much time, so I didn't warm up as much as I was planning, still I think it was sufficient. I took off a little fast and could tell I was pushing too hard in the first 4 minutes. My HR was already in the 180s! I was able to slow myself down some and calm my HR and got into my rhythm. My pace wasn't terribly consistent since the path around the lake had more rolling hills than I expected. There was also some melting snow on the path I had to navigate through. As I headed to the finish, I was definately feeling fatigue, moreso in my cardio system than my muscles, which is good since my body just isn't used to that intensity while running because I've only been doing long and low work in the prep phase.

Overall I finished the 2.6 miles in 18:35, which comes out to 7:07/mile pace. I was pretty pleased as a whole because I haven't run at high intensity at all yet, and because it leaves plenty of room for improvement. At this point I'm shooting for being able to run the route at 6:20/mile pace by the last test before my A race in October. If all goes well, I'll have no problem getting there.
Tommorrow is my bike 10mi TT, so I will follow up with a recap afterward.