Today Nathan and I started our run from the small gravel parking lot next to the Steeplechase in Percy Warner Park. We used to start here a LOT, but it has been quite a while since it has come up in our rotation. I picked this location for two reasons: (1) It has been very warm and sunny this week (even early in the morning) and the routes out of this lot are pretty shaded. (2) The route we took today is fairly hilly, and I just felt like running some hills for today’s easy run.
After starting across from the Steeplechase we took the old abandoned road near the 5-mile marker on the Main Drive in Percy Warner over onto the Main Drive in Edwin Warner. The abandoned road is an interesting place to run. It is kinda like a road/trail hybrid with lots of overgrowth and sections missing that were washed away by the 2010 flood. Also, while we run in Edwin Warner a LOT, we don’t typically run on the Main Drive there, so it was a nice change of pace. Near the end of the run we took the Harpeth River Greenway to the Edwin Warner Nature Center, and then hopped on the Candy-Cane connector trail back into Percy Warner before heading to the cars.
The schedule called for 75-minutes easy, and we kept the pace very, very chill throughout. I’m guessing the pace would have been quite a bit faster on a flat surface, but our route had over 1,400 ft of cumulative elevation gain in just over 8-miles, and included several different surfaces as mentioned above.
Overall I felt fantastic this morning, especially on the climbs. I actually felt better on the climbs today than I did on the one, steep downhill during miles 3 and 4. The heat and humidity were tough, but this didn’t seem to affect my energy level too much.
In total we finished just over 8.25-miles with an average pace of 9:22 per mile. For me that makes 28.2-miles since Monday, and I’m pretty sure that Nathan is well over 29. Even with my poor showing on Monday, this is still turning out to be a pretty good running week.
Beast Mode…ON!