Know when to fold them

I was awoken this morning by cheering and honking of horns and it turns out it was the Weekend to end Breast Cancer. A worthy cause where people raise at least $2,000 each to do a two-day 60K walk. Ow. It started to rain, and I felt bad for them.

My training calendar said I would have to do 10K (6 miles) at pace. Pace is, for now, 4:45-minute kilometres or 7:40 miles. I started off with a 4:40, then a 4:20. Then my calves started getting really sore and tight. Plus, the soles of my feet were starting to hurt. Not good. I have a good idea of why this happened, and I'm thinking it's 1) lack of stretching the past week and 2) my shoes really really need to be replaced. In the meantime, I decided to walk it off a bit, then resume with a slower 5:20 pace. I figure I have next week's 10 miler pacer plus a half marathon race in the next month to get me prepared to run at race pace. No sense in getting hurt.