Notes
Back in Iowa! Even better, Sycamore Trails is open!!! I ran it a few times this winter on packed snow, but basically, it's been under snow or water for 15 months (with a brief respite last fall).
I wanted a workout and with being alone and back in humidity, I wanted to make it as likely to succeed as possible. That meant: morning run in better conditions, dirt so I wasn't as concerned about pace, and tempo since it's slower.
The 3.5mile warm-up felt amazing. Mountain trails are fun but my most-relaxing runs are still flat singletrack. The only problem with trail tempos is it's all based on effort, and I had trouble figure out that effort today (haven't done much tempo work in a while). My pace was anywhere from 6 to 6:30. Not sure of a conversion to hard-surface but it seemed on par with prior tempos at Sycamore. Mostly happy with this simple effort, just a little down that each mile of the 20min was slower than the last. Likely due to more turns but still a downer.