Got the race results from the Boulder Half and I ran about as I thought.  I ran my second 6.55 miles 5 minutes faster than my first 6.55 miles.  I felt like I was racing again on the return.  Overall, my time was about a minute slower than the week before in Moab, or 5 seconds per mile slower.  If I consider the minute I took to relieve myself at the 4 mile port-a-potty, the two runs were equal; which is pretty amazing considering the 1000 feet difference in altitude and general variance in elevation.  The pic here is at the finish of the Moab run.

A Lo Hawk – coach that he is – left me a comment suggesting I add some speed work, even track workouts – to my schedule.  That is in fact my goal.  Gaining speed shouldn’t be so important to me, certainly not as much as improving my health.  I’ll even say that enjoying myself with a healthy outdoor hobby is near the top of my objectives.  But running faster is one of my goals.  I’d say it’s less of my competitive nature than the fact that I simply like running fast.  There’s a feeling almost animal in nature about letting your body go.  I like it.

Now that muscle tone has fully returned to my legs, I can tell that it’s my belly holding me back from running faster.  I should probably refer to the term – core.  I need to strengthen my core.  But such a convex core as mine is more aptly described by the term belly.  I’ll call it my core after it’s trimmed up a tad more.

This is not to say I wouldn’t benefit from track workouts.  While my belly is certainly an issue to be dealt with, my legs and cardiovascular system need to relearn how to run fast.  And this means interval workouts.  So my 2011 roadmap will include hitting the Niwot H.S. track this spring.  My racing objective is to run a 7 minute pace in this year’s Bolder Boulder.  That’s the only race I’m interested in running fast, so I’ll probably stop the track workouts by June.  For the summer, I want to run some half marathon trail runs.  Those won’t require speed as much as stamina and hill training.  So after I’ve improved upon my speed, I intend to increase my mountain trail running.  If the year of training goes well enough, I’ll run another marathon or two by year end.