Saturday, October 27, 2007

Rainy Saturday morning run

Ah well, I was thwarted of my long one, which is a pity insofar as a long run is clearly one of the great pleasures in life, but it was unavoidable. We set out to do 10, but C. was only doing 4 in any case because he's racing tomorrow and L. was overcome with congestion that made it advisable for us to call it at 5 and go and get breakfast instead. As Wendy says, people are more important than practice!

Two good things, aside from the enjoyable conversation throughout the run and the meal: we knew around mile 3.5 that we were going to quit after the first upper loop, so I treated myself to a fast last mile or so, very enjoyable (the settings I've got in the device don't give me super-detailed pace info, since I have it set on an auto-lap function that gives me data per mile, but the lap-end pace at 4 was 8:34 and at the end was 8:13, and max pace was 7:41--it is just a glimmer for now, but I did have a nice little glimpse of an attainable future in which I will definitely be able to run a 5-mile race at 8-minute pace and a half-marathon at 8:30 pace--really I think I should be able to get to 8 minutes as a half-marathon race pace, but that will be contingent on various things, including the relative commitment to running versus triathlon--it may be I never really get that fast, not sure about this); and because I only did just under 5 this morning, I can have a workout tomorrow morning that is EXACTLY what I most want and need, namely an hour on the bike trainer followed immediately by an hour run at an easy pace. This will be very good!

4.7 miles, 9:40 average pace

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Oooh. Glimmers are exciting!

Enjoy your swim today, as well.

Becca said...

What is this THING that gives you all this information? (I'm sure it's something completely obvious to anyone who seriously trains, which obviously I don't, though I've probably told you already that I did the first half of my last marathon at 8:30, which means you certainly will be able to do a half at that pace, and better.) (That was not a self-deprecating comment, but rather based on the fact that you train consciously with goals in a way that I never have.) (Hence the THING.)