Saturday, October 30, 2010

still more x-training

I'm still resting my glutes and hamstrings today, so I did another bike & elliptical day, same as yesterday. I actually have been enjoying the cross-training mostly because 1) I'm tired and it's been a rough week, and 2) I have a good book to read and can read while I bike/elliptical. I'm reading "The Great Influenza" by John Barry, about the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. It's fascinating, both from a historical perspective (WWI history) and a medical perspective. It's making me glad we all got our flu shots this week :).

My left glutes/hamstrings are still just the tiniest bit stiff, but are LOTS better than on Wednesday. I've got one more cross-training day and then on Monday I'm to do 14K with a few fast intervals to practice my 1/2 marathon pace. My goal for the race is to finish under 2:10, which is 6:09/km or 9:55/mile. Since the race will almost certainly have mile markers and not km markers, I'll probably switch my watch to statute from metric and will go by the per mile pace. My 1/2 marathon PR is 2:11:57, but it was on a hilly course and this course is flat, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to break it - besides, it seems like that PR is lagging behind the others a bit, so it's time to give it a shot. Finally, if I'm to have a prayer at breaking 2:00 in the 20K next summer, I have to be able to be under 2:10 quite easily eventually - 2:06:35 or so in the 1/2 marathon = 2:00 in the 20K. Obviously with my recent technique changes I'm not ready to do 2:06:35, but 2:10 does seem like a reasonable goal.

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