Sunday, February 12, 2006

Long run, for real

I took out my GPS Garmin Forerunner today so I could measure my speed, distance, pace, something i've been avoiding since late last year. I'm really not considering my current running training, but only as a way of getting my mileage back up to a pretraining level.

Today was also one of those perfect days again. Cold, blue skies, and a strong sun. So when I was looking out my window at 9 a.m., I saw about three runners out there.

Decided to run to the beaches and back, which is perfect, cause it's exactly 10K to get to the boardwalk. Tonnes of runners. We shared that usual, hand-up half wave that I like to exchange. We share the same pursuit, that of running against time, for health, for goals and races.

Anyhow, a very consistent run that I'd characterize as tempo.

The details
Run time: 1:44:42
Run distance: 21.02K
Average pace: 4:59/K
Best pace: 3:04 km/h (not sure where that came from, probably a GPS hiccup)
Calories: 1,503
Km1: 4:41
km5: 4:52
km10: 4:55
km15: 4:46
km21: 4:51

Weirdly enough, kilometres 11 to 15 felt amazing. Not sure if it was the runners high, or that I was running while this perfect song was on and a huge big sky and sun ahead of me urging me on. I mean, for at least 3kms, I actually forgot I was running. The breathing was no laboured, the stride was quick and it was all smooth. Then after 16km, fatigue set it Bad nutrition: pizza last night, no brekkie in the morning; Bad hydration: I only drank about two cups of water, not nearly enough.

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