Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Day 2: 16.6 miles down, 33.4 to go.

I logged 10.6 miles today. There's still some nasty icy spots on the trails where the sun don't shine, but aside from that, the conditions are sublime. The sun actually has some warmth!  I ran a slow 3 miles to the Formal Gardens for my 5 kilometer trial run. I estimated that I could keep a 5 minute/ kilometer pace for the full 5 k (i.e. 25 minutes for the full 5 k). When I arrived at the Formal Gardens I caught my breath and walked a bit, set my Garmin to kilometers, set the timer to zero, pressed start, and "KABOOM" (actually it was more like a lower case "kaboom") off I went!

Pacing is really important for time trials. If you set too fast a pace you'll bonk half way, too slow and you'll never meet your potential. I paced myself using my heart rate and my breathing as indicators. Both were high, but not uncomfortably so. I felt exhaustion creeping in at about 3.8 k, but it didn't appear to slow my pace. Each lap of the Formal Gardens is about 750 meters so I needed about 7 laps. The last lap was as you'd expect... pretty darn hard, but I kept a little in the tank for the last 100 meters and I turned it on and finished strong.  Total time was 24 minutes, 52 seconds (8 seconds better than my prediction) with an average pace of 4 minutes, 58 seconds per kilometer (2 seconds better than my prediction per k pace).   I'll repeat this trial in a few weeks time to see if I can improve it by several seconds.

5 K in 24 minutes, 52 seconds


Open water at Olmand's Creek.  

The foot bridge will be flooded soon.
The detour to Portage Avenue adds about 0.8 mile.


The Formal Gardens.

Today's running rule that your momma never told you...

Running Rule # 3:  Never carry more than two electronic devises on your run or you risk looking like this guy.  



Several weeks ago I blogged a post called Running Eyes Wide Open that touches on this topic.    Running is a minimalist activity; that's the beauty.  Too much gadgetry takes away from the beauty of running.  Enjoy it.

It's a good day to be alive,

Mike

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