Tuesday pm, 30 minutes
Wednesday am, 5.5 miles tempo

I slept through my alarm on Tuesday and had a packed schedule even after
work, but I was able to squeeze in a 30 minute run with Silas, running
from the Farmer's Market to the grocery store (the long way). It was
good to keep the run short and easy, anyway, because a tough evening run
is a sure recipe for skipping the next morning.

As it happened, I dragged myself out of bed at 5:45, made an espresso,
and sat down to read the previews of todays playoff games. I then
remembered the reason that I was up, and got out the door by 6:07.
Having moved to the Bay Area in May, I had been under the impression
that it is a place with remarkably long hours of daylight. It turns
out that this isn't the case, and the days are actually starting later
now. This apparently has something to do with the tilt of the earth.
In fact, the length of the day seems to vary sinusoidally over the
course of the year, with a maximum in June and a minimum (I reckon) in
December. Most incredibly, the rate of change of the length of the day
has the same variation, but seems to be phase-shifted by about -3
months. Fascinating.

With such ruminations on my mind, I missed starting the first split for
my tempo run, so I'll call it 20:52 for the first 3/4 mile. Things
could only get better from here, and they did, but just barely. I was
running the long version of the course, and the plan was to feel
like quitting by the time I hit College and Dwight, and then hold the
effort for another 1/4 mile downhill to Dwight and Telegraph, for 3
splits of .75, 1.0, and .25 miles. I was feeling it by the time I hit
Dwight, but the mile split was a dismal 6:58. Even accounting for the
uphill run, this is the slowest that I have taken this mile and was
pretty deflating. I managed the next 1/4 mile in a fast 1:28, though,
so I'm not sure what to make of the run overall. It's possible that
my mind wandered during the mile and I let the pace drop off a bit.
I'll have to try it again next week and see what happens.