30K

Brrrrrr! 25F (-4C) but at least it was calm and clear. To combat the chill, I decided on mid-thigh shorts with tights over the top, a long-sleeved shirt, fleece jacket, fleece hat, and gloves. That was just about right; I did have to push up the sleeves on the fleece jacket (by the end of my walk it had warmed up to 37F), but I was glad I was wearing it. I brought along some water bottles with zipfizz and water, and they FROZE. I had to stop for a while to drink because the top of the bottles (the part that pulls out to drink) got frozen first and so I had to unscrew the lids to actually drink. My gels were very thick and goopy, too. The joys of winter. Yay. Can you tell it's my favorite season?

The walk itself went quite well this morning. I started off a bit slow and sluggish (a couple 3:10s for 500m) because my adductors (especially the left one) were very sore initially. I think it might be from ice skating! But they loosened up quickly and didn't give me any more trouble. This was another one of those really consistent walks where I found a good pace and rhythm and was able to hold it. My 5K splits were: 31:02, 31:09 (1:02:11), 30:48 (1:32:59), 31:02 (2:04:00), 31:02 (2:35:03), 31:13 (3:06:19).

The bad part? Well, about 28K, my right knee started to hurt. Not too bad, but bad enough that I thought it might be a problem. At first I could not identify the pain precisely, but after I finished and visited the restroom (so glad Liberty Park has restrooms!) I was walking down a couple stairs and OUCH it HURT! I knew EXACTLY what was wrong...yeah, the ol' IT band was acting up. I could not figure out why for a little bit, but then I remembered that after the Cold Turkey race on Thursday that I had run about 5 minutes DOWNHILL with my work colleague after the race. She came with me walking uphill to my car to get my jacket while we waited for the awards (she won her age group!), and then when we started back toward the finish line she suggested we jog a little. I didn't think twice about it (dumb, I know, but I really didn't think!) and ran with her. I had no pain after that but today it's two days later, and the 30K of racewalking was enough to bring it out. I'm pretty sure that's what did it, and if that's the case, then a couple days off (which I have now because this week is an "easy" week), ibuprofen, ice, and foam roller should do the trick. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I have promised Jim that I will not run even ONE more step before the 50K!

I also got quite tired today by the end - the last 5K was a bit tough, and I will confess that today's walk was more like an 80% effort than an easy walk. I figured that would be OK since I have an easy week coming up, and overall I felt quite good today, so I wanted to see how I'd do pushing it a little. However, I am pretty sure that today I could NOT have held that pace for another 20km. That makes me a little worried, except that 1) I'm only one week out from the marathon, and 2) I still have a good 4 weeks of training to give me a little more staying power.

All in all, it was a good day. I'm icing my knee now and I'm going to relax this afternoon!

Edited to add totals: 3:06:19, 6:13/km (10:00/mile), ave HR 147.

Garmin connect data here.