awesome 12K

Before I get to the 12K, I forgot to mention yesterday that I went and did weight training with Lisa after my 10K. I skipped it on Monday, and won't be able to do it tomorrow (I'm going to Calvin's class tomorrow to talk about zebrafish research at 8:15!), so I'm glad I got one day in.

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To use some Kiwi expressions, I want to let all my mates know that I am rapt with my flash walk today. Translation: I want to let all my friends know that I'm thrilled with my fantastic walk today :). I've been talking with my friend Nyle too much I guess!

I didn't get enough sleep last night because I was at work doing a hypoxia experiment until 10:30 pm. Ugh! When my alarm went off at 5:30 I wasn't sure I'd make it. But I got up and checked the weather. Last night it rained and snowed, and it was supposed to be showery this morning, and so I wasn't sure about walking outside. But I was in luck! It wasn't nice, but it was certainly tolerable, and way better than the treadmill or indoor track. It was 36F (2C) and overcast, with a stiff breeze. I wore two long-sleeved shirts and my tights and gloves, and a baseball cap in case of showers. About 7km into my walk it snowed a bit on me, stopped, and resumed from 9.5-12k. In fact, by the end of my walk it was snowing quite hard. It wasn't sticking to the road because it was too warm, but between the snow and the wind it wasn't exactly nice.

That didn't matter though. I felt great today! The first 2-3k was nothing remarkable, and my legs even felt a little tired. However, I kept cranking out really fast 500s with a reasonable heart rate of 145-150, so I just kept going. As I went on, I felt stronger and stronger. I reached 5K in just 30:53, and got to 8K in 49:39. That is faster than I did the Canyonlands 5-miler (same distance - 8K) last March. My time for that was 49:52; admittedly, that was after a long layoff for my foot injury - but still, that was a race, and this just a workout. I continued on, feeling good, and reached 10K in 1:02:11, with ave HR still just 148. That's the fastest 10K I've done in a long time, and with my heart rate so low - I'm really pleased! Then I just had the 2K slight uphill home, which I did quickly, realizing I could get under 1:15 for my 12K without too much trouble. I finished in 1:14:52 for 6:14/km with ave HR of 148. WOW! My slowest 500m was 3:13 on the slight uphill back home. Nice!

I'm feeling so much better than I was last week, when I was discouraged by the whole getting back in shape process. It just takes a few good workouts to start feeling much better. I'm grateful for that.

My foot was slightly warm today, but I watched my technique and am icing it now, and it's going to be fine.

Garmin connect data here.