Late April is hit-and-miss for fast stadium times, but this morning was cool enough that I decided to go for it. It stopped raining during the workout (too bad, as I got warm) so I spotted a water bottle at section 25. The goal was to run down the big steps. Two reasons: 1) it seems to be faster and 2) it's good Sisters training.
I went fast, too. I felt good for the first third of the stadium, on about a 20-minute stadium pace. That wasn't about to last but I came through the turn on about a 23 minute pace, well under my PR. I had to run with my water bottle a bit to drink and cool down, and stopped putting time on people like Bojan and even got passed by Smooth. But that was okay, race your own race. I found some push near the end and a PR was within reach. I was able to sprint up the last couple of sections (the last especially) with full lactate tunnel vision and hit the wall at 23:22, a 45-second PR.
After whittling 9 seconds off in two years, I took 48 seconds off in five months. Progression (all times
here):
6/6/12 32:00
7/25/12 29:32 -2:28
7/31/13 28:32 -1:00
10/30/13 27:00 -1:32
4/30/14 25:35 -1:25
10/29/14 24:19 -1:14
11/30/16 24:10 -0:09
4/27/17 23:22 -0:48