I have never had someone stop me while running (or biking) to ask for directions until today… and it happened twice! The first time I was actually stopped, waiting to cross Del Mar Heights Road where it joins Carmel Valley Road, so I didn’t really think much about it. I did wind up missing the light and waiting through another cycle, but I wasn’t sad about getting a bit of extra rest at that juncture. I managed to keep my rhythm and run all the way through Palacio Del Mar and start heading up the big hill home when a guy in a truck cut across three empty lanes to pull up right in front of me and ask how to get to Escondido. He didn’t have a lot of other options, so I was nice and told him how easy it was to get there.

I was a little upset that I had come to a complete stop to talk to this guy. I was convinced it had messed me up for running that last hill, so I pushed even harder. Now, as I look back on it, I wonder if I ended up going faster up that last hill precisely because I stopped and gave that guy directions. We’ll never know, but I’m always going to help someone out if at all possible.

I changed my route up a bit after looking back through my logs of my faster runs last spring. When I was running faster I was starting off running downhill. It added more uphill to my runs, but I had a theory that starting off going fast without having to push hard would get me into a good rhythm. I wasn’t wrong. I cruised through almost the whole first mile (which has 150 feet of climbing). I did run out of air right at the end and walk a bit to catch my breath, but I didn’t walk long. I pushed hard through mile 2 and hit 6:00/mi going down the steep hill through Lansdale, but that really killed me mentally and I walked a little bit more to catch my breath again. I got right back to it and ran almost the whole way home (minus the stoplight and the guy trying to find Escondido). I did walk a couple times on that last big hill, but never for very long.

I finished pretty strong and really felt great.