Sunday, April 24, 2011

solid 20K

My legs were quite tired yesterday, but the day of cross-training (though hard) seemed to allow some recovery. They felt good today, and only slightly tired at a couple points during the walk.

I had to get up quite early to start, because it's Easter Sunday and I'm playing the organ for church. That meant practicing from 8-8:30, because that was the only slot I could get. The band needed 8:30-9:30, and then at 9:30 I'm to practice with the vocal soloist and euphonium soloist. Busy morning! So I got on the road by about 5:30 am. The weather was quite nice - 36F (3C) and calm and partly cloudy. It's supposed to rain today, but later on :).

I felt good today, but not great. I knew after 5K that this would not be a really fast day, but that doesn't matter at all for a long day. I just wanted to do the workout in a solid time with a good HR to work on my endurance. My foot was warmish/slightly achy but under control. I did focus quite a bit on my technique to keep it happy, and that seemed to work well enough.

Here are my 5K splits: 31:07 (slight downhill); 31:52; 32:10, and 31:46. Nice! I was pushing that last one a bit, but it's slightly uphill at the end, and I really wanted to be as consistent as possible on my 5Ks. I'm happy with the way they came out. Total time: 2:06:55 for 6:20/km with ave HR of 149.

If you haven't noticed, I haven't had any GI problems recently in my workouts. Why? I've been taking an imodium the night before and one the morning of my longer workouts (>10K). It has made all the difference in the world. Jim has warned me that in hot weather that can be dicey, but I'm hoping that the 20K will be early in Sacramento so that it won't be too hot, because I HAVE to take the imodium, or I will lose 5 minutes to the porta-potty and it won't be pretty. I'm just happy that it's working because I've felt SO MUCH BETTER!

Training alone all the time is a bit of a bummer, but happily I do have virtual training partners. I love following my friends' training on their blogs/facebook...notably Erin T. from New York, Sarah R. from Canada & Nyle S. from New Zealand, though there are others as well :). It's really fun to encourage each other in our training.

Garmin connect data here.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm enjoying reading about what everyone else is doing too!

Good job out there today! I'm impressed with how early you got out there to get it done, and then with your busy day afterwards! Great job!

Nyle said...

Great consistent splits, you have to be really happy with that time too.

I couldnt drag myself out at 5.30am for a walk....but then I am so NOT a morning person lol.

I too enjoy our virtual training partners. I like to follow what everyone is doing and how they are all feeling etc. The blogs are great to read and the comments we give to each other help so much.