Avoiding the goose-stepping run

Distance: 10.02 km
Weather: Sun and cloud mix
Temp: 5ºC
Wind: calm
Calories burned: 700
Average pace: 5:44/km
Total distance to date: 1110 km

Today’s run was much the same as Friday’s but with one change — I ran counter-clockwise. I was interested to compare this to my last few runs because CCW around the lake requires a smidgen more effort as it is has a fair bit more uphill parts.

This turned out to have no impact, as I easily beat my previous average pace by 9-10 seconds (iPod =10, Nike+ site= 9, me=wishing Nike would fix this nonsense so the two would agree with each other).

Animal-wise, the geese were back. No hissing incidents though a (likely mated) pair crossed in front of me when the trail intersected a path leading to a viewpoint on the lake. There was enough space between them to charge forward but I moved around instead because I wasn’t in the mood to test how quickly a goose can snap its head forward and pack me in the leg. The clouds of bugs were back in the usual spots and I swear they have mutated to giant size. Yuck. I’d say I hope the cold kills them off but that’s mean and spring starts tomorrow so also quite unlikely.

Not that it felt overly spring-like. A mix of mostly cloud and a little sun and hovering around 5-6ºC, still unseasonably cold for this time of year. The last few km of the run were hard but I worked to maintain pace and managed to stave off cramps though I felt a little bloaty because I foolishly drank a little Coke Zero before heading out.

Chart:

Mar 19 Mar 16 Mar 7 Mar 5 Feb 6 Feb 3
1 km 5:10 5:08 5:06 5:02 5:06 5:06
2 km 5:20 5:22 5:22 5:17 5:15 5:21
3 km 5:26 5:32 5:30 5:24 5:21 5:31
4 km 5:31 5:37 5:33 5:30 5:25 5:37
5 km 5:34 5:42 5:35 5:33 5:28 5:39
6 km 5:36 5:47 5:38
7 km 5:38 5:49 5:40
8 km 5:41 5:51 5:42
9 km 5:43 5:52 5:45
10 km 5:44 5:53 5:47

Bonus chart! It seems the Nike+ site now shows split times for your runs. Neat. No idea how accurate the data is but here it is, anyway. I have used a new plugin to generate the table called Websimon tables in the vain hope that it would make table creation a bit easier. What would be nice is if the Nike+ site allowed you to export your data to…anything. Maybe in the summer.

[ws_table id=”1″]

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