Benchmarking my pace

I'm in the process of thinking through what it means to train for The 3-Day. I ran a marathon way back when (ok, 20 years ago) so this sort of training isn't completely new to me. One hint I've picked up from the folks that run the event is that I'll want to maintain a 3 mile per hour pace. As a runner, I always considered myself a slow poke. So today, I thought maybe it was a good idea to determine how fast I can walk given my current level of conditioning.

I loaded up my training partners (aka Big Dog and the Puppy) and drove over to my Baker Creek route. This is a fairly challenging out and back that includes a 240 foot elevation gain over less than a mile on the way out. I hoofed it out to my usual turnaround point in 17:34 (roughly 1.1 miles for a respectable 3.78 miles per hour, if I did the math right). I was sucking wind when I got to the end and started back down the hill. I must have puttered around a little on the way back because my total time was 34:12 giving me an overall pace of 3.8 miles per hour. Not bad for a middle-aged computer jockey!

Dogs enjoyed the walk as always though I think the Puppy wondered why I was in such a hurry. He spent part of the time dancing around in front of me as if to say, "hey mom, stop and smell the whatever it is dogs like to sniff--it ain't roses." Cloudy today but no rain, 46 deg F.

Another training note: I did 20 minutes on the ellipitical this morning as well as strength training for my back, shoulders, arms, and legs.