Flashes of Panic

First place in yesterday’s race was long gone pretty early in the process. I kept second place in sight throughout, however, and finished within a minute of him: seventh overall, fifth male. I could easily imagine, in a different place in my athletic arc, sweeping through the field up to second. Working up to seventh from tenth at the first mile will have to satisfy me for now; it was a lot of work.

We attributed some of the times to the course, which includes 230’ of climbing and corresponding descent. The third mile, which is almost entirely uphill, was about thirty seconds slow for nearly everyone I discussed it with.

But, lest I be accused of exaggerating, here’s the numbers. The starting and finishing elevation is, according the the USGS, 160’; the peak of about 391’ happens around a quarter-mile past the three-mile marker.

So the tentative conclusions are, (1) there’s a link between elevation change and pace, because sorting the miles by elevation change sorts most of my mile splits pretty well too, but (2) there’s such thing as “too much downhill.”

The profile would be more convincing, except that the scale distorts things a bit.

Now Playing: Sads from Magician Among the Spirits and Some by The Church

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