I don’t normally worry about the time when I run, preferring whatever pace feels comfortable and not bothering with what the watch says. The one exception is when I do speed work. And I like to do courses from the past, as it’s an excellent way to compare your performances from week to week and year to year.

For that reason, over the next few months, as I prepare for the City to Surf and a possible attempt to ‘beat my age’, I will be using my speed work sessions as a means of comparison – to see how I’m improving each week, but also to gauge how I’m doing compared to last year, and even to years before that.

So, let’s compare today’s session with last week’s – a logical thing to do, seeing as I ran an almost identical set of sprints. Last week I did my 230 metre hill twice (average 44.0), 400 metres in 71.4, and finishing with a 1 km in 3:22. Today I again did the hill twice (average 41.2), the 400 metres in 69.1, the 1 km in 3:16, and then finished with a mile in 5:32. That was very pleasing, especially as it felt easier than last week. In fact, both the 400 metres and the 1 km were the fastest I’ve run those distances since 2008.

The signs for a reasonable C2S are good, particularly as it’s still only early May. If I’m to ‘beat my age’, past experience suggests I’ll still need to improve quite a bit yet, though.

Keeping with the Arizona theme, today’s photo is from just east of the Grand Canyon, on approach to the Painted Desert. A fantastic place to run, although a little lonely.

On This Day

May 11, 2013

Distance today = 51.78 km; Total distance = 20,770.29 km; Location = Edirne, Turkey – 41 41.984′ N, 26 25.501′ E; Start time = 0844, Finish time = 1800

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/311070990

I have reached Turkey, the 17th country of my world run. As usual, the border crossing process was a pain, but we finally got through late this afternoon.

Barry ran the last 12 km of the day with me, and he also crossed the Bulgarian-Turkish border on foot – his first, and possibly last border crossing on foot. There were five check-points in total, over a distance of 1.2 km. My only remaining border crossing on foot will be from Malaysia to Singapore, in a few weeks.

The day was, otherwise, without drama. The weather was spectacular again, and the roads were much quieter, thanks to a parallel freeway about 2 km north of the road I was on. Barry and I ran on an uncompleted section of this freeway, just before the border.

Earlier in the day, I passed a creek with a green mossy growth on it, noticing a lot of movement. I waited until the culprits appeared again – numerous terrapins (not turtles or tortoises) poking their heads above the water when they thought I’d gone.

We found accommodation on the Turkish side quite easily, unlike yesterday. Carmel, Deb, and Barry had gone ahead on that occasion to a “hotel”. There were actually three reception desks in the one lobby area, each for a different hotel. There were spruikers from each establishment, vying for their business, trying to pull them in their direction. They found the whole experience too confronting, and left. Thankfully, they found the great hotel on the river, in which we stayed.

There have been a lot of comments recently about Barry’s running fashion. He’s been getting a bit of flak from those close to him, about the “daggyness” of his apparel, and now he has dragged me into it, with reference to my 1970s Greg Anning-style running shorts. I don’t think we’ve heard the end of this.