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Freeze Your Thorns Off

DATE: Saturday, January 8, 2011
LOCATION: streets & park near home
RACE BEGAN: 06:50 am (approximately)
FINISH TIME: 01:41:41

The Boring Runner hosted a virtual 5k that I thought I'd take part in since I have not done any of these virtual races in a while.

I am currently training for LA Marathon on March 20. It will be my 8th marathon, but after my last race in November, I decided I needed to lay off the running for a little while. It was getting tiresome (beyond normal) and dreadful. But once the new year kicked into year, I ran 26 miles in the first week and felt a LOT better about running.

Part of this week's mileage went into this 5k, except that I added another, oh, 6.9 miles to that distance. I had a training run of 10 miles to get done (I had 8 scheduled for New Years' weekend but did not end up doing it), so I finally dusted off my Garmin, woke up early on a Saturday, drank half a cup of water, did the whole sunscreen thing, and braved the cold for this run. I am not sure how cold it was, but I could see my breath. I had my MP3 player (the Sony W Series one) on and didn't turn it on for the first while.

Nothing too eventful about this run. Left my house, ran to the regional park about 4 miles away, ran the 2-ish mile loop there, and ran home. On the way, there are steady inclines, varied terrain, and some traffic lights (I stopped my watch for these, unlike usual). I felt myself going slow, but for the first time in a LONG time, I didn't make any unnecessary stops during my run. All my injuries last year forced me to take walk breaks, but no more.

The last couple of miles were tough -- I mean, duh... I am outta shape apparently. But I felt good otherwise and pushed on toward home.

Final pace: 10:10/mi. Is that supposed to be OK for a long run? My "race pace" falls in between 8:40-9:00/mi for half-marathons. Oh well. I have about a month and a half to build up to the inevitable 20-miler... in the meantime, it's kind of refreshing to blog about an uneventful training run. :D

And as for my initial 5k time, I didn't record a 3.1 split, but here's miles 1-3: 10:16, 10:24, 10:12. That doesn't make for a very good time... but at least that means negative splits.
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Comments

  1. Andrew OpalaJanuary 9, 2011 at 2:52 PM

    You did way better than my 5k time! 42:43

    ReplyDelete
  2. dawn @ running the dawnJanuary 9, 2011 at 4:49 PM

    i think that's fin for a long run. i do all my long runs 30-45 seconds per mile slower. good job doing it all without walking breaks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Boring RunnerJanuary 14, 2011 at 2:09 PM

    Sorry that I am just now getting to comment on this...

    Way to go! You're a lot better than me with the sunscreen. I would have never thought about it in a million years! Good luck w/ the training for LA

    ReplyDelete

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