T'zafrir Elite

I´m in a better mood today, though the incredibly slow internet today is seemingly trying to change that.

It was super clear this morning and part of me wanted to blow of work and go run up into the mountains, but I felt a little bit of responsibility, so I didn´t. But you could see all the way to Cotopaxi and the Ilinizas (about 100km away) so it was really nice. The main reason that I felt obligation to go to work today was because yesterday Ligia (our boss more or less, from Sol y Vida) came in with a new girl who was going to start this morning. I would have felt bad abandoning someone on her first day...

Anyways, so I was working in the downstairs big open waiting room area this morning, which is usually really intimidating but wasn´t so bad today. The girl, who turns out to be German and I can´t quite remember her name, actually speaks really good Spanish (she´s been in Ecuador since July), which is really helpful because often times in the downstairs area, parents will ask us things and I usually have no idea what to say. So, it was actually nice to have some company, especially when said company could communicate with the general populus much better than me.

The real point of today, though, was my tempo run. I planned on running the same 4k loop (around la Carolína), but hopefully a good bit faster than last week. Last week I ran 14:14 or about 5:45 pace per mile. My goal for today (which I gave myself the incentive of ice cream if I suceeded) was to go under 14:00. Well, as I set off on my warm up it was really hot. It must have been over 80 degrees. My warmup was a mile, pretty slow, around 7:40. I did a couple of striders and then got ready to head off. The annoying part of this course is that the one really narrow part of the loop is right at the beginning, where it can get a little congested. So, I went out pretty fast and just sort of plowed through a couple of groups of people.

There´s a strange thing about trying to run fast at altitude. The first minute I felt totally solid: really strong and fast. After that I realized I was going too fast and settled into my pace. This is pretty normal for any altitude, but what´s strange is what happens after about 6 or 7 minutes. See, at this point, my mind, instead of focusing on the run, just starts to think of reasons why I should stop. I don´t usually experience this running. I´ll hear a voice in my head say ¨why don´t we just go to this corner, that´s far enough¨ or ¨maybe we should just sprint for another minute and then we can stop!¨ I have never felt such difficulty in simply not stopping.

The only point of reference I had for pace was that at the last corner, before a long straight section, which I had passed it at 10 flat last time. So, I knew that I would have to pass it between 9:40 and 9:45 to make my goal time. As I came close to the corner, I looked at my watch and saw that it read barely over 9:30. I was pretty excited as I was pretty hopeful I was going to do it. The last long, straight section went by like a 100 mile race. Eventually, though, I pulled up to the corner at which I had started and stopped my watch. I looked down and it read 13:49 (5:33 per mile). Solid.

I was feeling pretty good about this, so I stood around and caught my breath and then jogged back. I listened to my new victory-celebration song (Phish´s cover of ¨After Midnight¨ from Big Cypress http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBReuEFy_JI). Check it out.

Since then, I´ve just been refueling and then came down here to the net cafe. I talk to Annie for a while and tried to get her video chat working, which failed :(. But then talked to Pax which actually worked really well, despite a shitty connection. It was good to talk to that kid.

It´s not a perfect connection, but it works okay. I´m going to try and buy a webcam so I can figure out how to do this with other people.

Alright, I´m out of here.