February 18, 2009, around 9-10am. My first time to run this loop--an absolutely incredible route! From home it was 8.8 miles, run in 1:20 with 0.55 stopping time for 6.6mph moving average (9 min/mile) and 6.5mph total average. This was after several days of rain, so the hills were very green and quite different from the satellite image below!
The same route drawn on a topo map.
Distance below is measured with my Garmin GPSmap 60CSx and there's probably a 10% or so variation. Time is total time including stopping time, since I found my GPS loses its signal in the railroad underpass and includes that as stopping time. Speed and pace are then based on that total time.
| Date | Route | Length | Time | Speed | Pace |
| 2/28/09 | Standard, CW | 8.9 | 1:12 | 7.4 | 8:05 |
| 2/21/09 | Standard, CW | 8.7 | 1:14 | 7.1 | 8:29 |
| 2/18/09 | Standard, CCW | 8.8 | 1:21 | 6.5 | 9:12 |
Data below is measured with my Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watch. Note that ascent and descent don't match which is a bad sign; a previous run of the same loop gave ascent 1470 which is more accurate but about the same total climbing as the entire NYC Marathon (on the other hand that was also measured with a Garmin 305 probably and thus would have similar problems). Topo gives 563 feet which is probably low but much closer to the real elevation gain. Distance and pace seem quite accurate. Weather was perfect in the 60s, and although I was recovering from a cold and hadn't done any serious running or walking since the trip to Half Moon Bay two weeks prior, I also had a lot of pent-up energy. Lap 1 is from home to the gate, lap 2 from the gate clockwise to the bigger satellite dish, lap 3 back to the gate, and lap 4 to home. I was plenty hydrated before the run and didn't drink during it; I lost 2.5 pounds of water weight.
My first time using the heart rate monitor with the Garmin 305. I don't know what my my maximum heart rate is. The formulas based only on age say 175-179, and a test based on resting heart rate using my old Polar HRM several years ago had 184, but it should have gone down since then and I have no idea if that number was accurate in the first place. Seeing as my heart rate got up to 172 on the steepest part of the dish loop, and that I wasn't particularly pushing myself, I would guess my max is at least 180 and possibly 185 or higher. If my first lap (home to the dish loop) was run at 80% of max HR that that would give a max of 180; on the other hand the 154 I ran home at the end still felt well within the aerobic zone and if that were 80% the max would be 192! I'll see if I can see any higher maximum numbers in future runs.
I felt aerobically much better today than my last run (I seem to have completely recovered from the cold, which helped), but was rather low on energy and didn't run as fast despite a better start.
