Day Two - Long(ish) Run

So far so good, I'm still on track.

Today the plan was to run 10 km.  My plan was to run 3 km as a warm up  (6:30/ km ~10:30 mile), then 5 km at 10k race pace (under 6:00/km <10 min mile), and then cool down for the last two km.

Feeling Chipper This Morning

I felt pretty good when I got up - I've had some awful sleeps this week and I think I finally managed to catch up a bit on Friday/Saturday night. My hip flexors and glutes were feeling a little stiff and sore from my workout yesterday - I tried to go easy but I guess it wasn't easy enough. They seemed to be ok on my run though, thankfully.

I had a cup of coffee and a pear for breakfast and took an espresso Hammer gel before I left as fuel for my run. Erik and I drove down to Gyro beach to park and we ran along Abbott and into City Park, then back to the car. (He ran his pace and I ran mine.)

It was partly cloudy and about 13-14C (55-57F) so I wore my tri shorts and a tech t-shirt.  I felt a bit cool at the start but decided against my vest. I ran with my 20 oz hand held bottle and a Nuun tablet and drank about half of it.

The Run
I kept to my planned paces quite closely, even though my Garmin pace seemed to wander all over the place while I was running. I went partly by pace and partly by heart rate, being in Zone 2 for the warm up and in high Zone 3 for the middle 5 km  (14 min were into Zone 4).

The big unknown was what kind of pace I'd keep for the middle 5km - I wanted to be under a 6 min/km but wasn't sure how much under.  In the end, I averaged about 5:45-5:50/km (9:15 mile) so I'm really happy with that. I felt good for the first 4 km but the last km was painful and I could feel my form falling apart. My HR was starting to climb into Zone 4 at this point and my avg HR for the last 3 km of that section was 170 bpm. When I finished that race pace segment, I walked for one minute and then jogged for the last 2 km, at about a 6:30/km.


Afterwards
Overall, I felt really good on this run. My shins, feet, and ankle all felt ok and I was quite happy that I didn't seem to having any of the usual lasting effects after my faster hilly run last Tuesday. I stretched and iced when I got home and now, later in the evening, I am felling pretty stiff and sore (glutes mainly).


Race Plan for Sunday

However, I don't think I'm going to be able to hold that 5:45/km (9:15 mile) pace for the whole 10 km next Sunday.  My plan, if I can stick to it, is to run 6:15/km for the first 2 km, then 5:45/km for the next 6 km, then whatever I can for the last 2 km. If I can keep the last two km around a 6 min km, I can break an hour. Just barely. I've never raced a 10km and I've never tried to break an hour so I have no idea if I can do that right now. I guess we shall see.  I'm not too worried about it though - what will be, will be.  I'll be content with a slightly faster run than I did today - each time is a PR for me.