25K easy

I was a bit apprehensive about doing 25K (15.5 miles). It's been a while, and my 20K last weekend hurt a lot. However, my last couple workouts have been good, so I figured it might be good.

The weather was nice, at 68F (20C) and 35% humidity. It was a little warm, but there was a breeze and it didn't feel terribly hot. I got to the Jordan River trail early (about 6 am) to take advantage of the morning cool air. It's been in the low 90s (typical summer weather here) so one definitely does not want to go any later than necessary.

I was careful about what I ate yesterday, and took imodium last night and this morning, and I had no GI problems. Yay! I ate starting at 10K, taking sports beans first, then gummy peach rings at 15K, and tootsie rolls at 20K. Hey, a good excuse to eat candy :)! I drank quite a bit - I had three water bottles (8 oz each, about 240ml) and drank them and refilled them several times. I love the Jordan River trail because 1) it's flat, 2) it has numerous restrooms, and 3) it has lots of water fountains as well, and 4) most of them are open in the winter, too.

The one bad thing about today was my Garmin...it was losing the satellite reception a lot. Mostly it found it again quickly and was able to extrapolate my distance accurately, but a few times it was longer...grrr. I still think my distance was pretty close overall, for numerous reasons. But it was still quite annoying. I'm going to try a hard reset and see if that helps. It's been doing this for a while and seems to be getting worse, so perhaps it's time for a new one? It's not quite 2 yr old yet :(. However, I rely on it a LOT and would feel pretty lost w/o it at this point, so hopefully the hard reset will fix it. I don't really want to lay out $$$ for a new one right now.

Anyway, I started off nice and slow and easy just like my coach said to do, and I felt OK for the whole workout. It was fairly slow, but I got through it at a pretty consistent pace, and I didn't feel overly tired at the end. I'm sure I could have pushed the pace at the end if I had needed to, but the coach was pretty specific about taking it easy for now, which is wise and I agree with it totally. I was glad I didn't have to pick it up :). We're increasing mileage rapidly and so we have to keep it easy. Next weekend is 30K...but I digress.

Total time 2:41:03, with ave HR 141 (very easy, like I said) and ave pace 6:26/km. 5K splits (approximate due to Garmin problems - the 15K split is too fast and the 20K split too slow): 5K 32:04, 10K 32:13 (1:04:17), 15K 31:06 (1:35:23), 20K 33:12 (2:08:35), 25K 32:28 (2:41:03). Close enough anyway - you get the idea. I kept a relatively steady pace for the whole thing, and didn't slow too much.

My muscles felt just a bit sore to start, and I did notice soreness in the glutes which increased throughout the workout. It never got that bad, though. I'm a bit stiff now (several hours later) but otherwise I feel good. The workout didn't feel too hard or too terribly long, and it was pretty nice to be out this morning. It was a LOT better than last week's 20K. I wasn't fast, but I also wasn't pushing it at all, which was a welcome relief. Just the distance is enough for now.

I saw a lot of runners out there who were clearly doing some long distances as well - they had their water bottles and their iPods. Here, most people do their long day on Saturday so the trail was not as busy this morning, but there were still a lot of people out there walking dogs, running, biking, etc. One woman was pushing her "kick-me" dog in a baby stroller...yeah...I know. I saw her last week, too. It was hard not to laugh!

Ahhh, now I get to relax a bit - hopefully read the paper, nap, and do not a lot of anything until our church BBQ get-together tonight.

Garmin connect data here.