The ‘I have a bad feeling about this’ run

Distance: 10.05 km
Weather: Sunny!
Temp: 7-8ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 702
Average pace: 5:50/km
Total distance to date: 1120 km

I again ran clockwise today but I had a feeling this was not going to be a great run, despite the weather being absolutely perfect. I opted to not wear a jacket and that was wise, as I would have overheated, especially with the sun out.

The day started out with me oversleeping. I had a late breakfast and set off to run a few hours later. Despite the excess sleep, I actually felt a little tired just doing the 4K walk to the lake. Hence the whole ‘I have a bad feeling’ thing. I started off and my initial 1 km was off by a full three seconds — 5:13/km. There’s pacing yourself and then there’s just plain slow. I pressed on and finished with an overall pace of 5:50/km, six seconds off my previous run. I’m not too happy with that but I’ll chalk it up to mitigating factors (excuses!):

  • the sun was out; the sun also tuckers me out a little when I’m not used to it
  • I was over-rested and felt ‘off’ because of it
  • I missed Wednesday’s run due to hail (!), making it harder to build off of Monday’s run
  • I experienced some cramps

I stopped briefly to pause two times. The first was when I came upon a truck on the path that had two men shoveling out gravel to fill in potholes (I had already passed the woman running a small tractor that was smoothing down the gravel). It seemed safer to carefully walk by than continue running. And it was a convenient way to catch my breath. I next paused at about the 6K mark and that was because I was plain pooped. I pressed on after that till the end, though. The whole run felt hard.

Still, I am obviously far off peak condition so I accept this as just another step to getting there. Excelsior!

Chart:

Mar 23 Mar 19 Mar 16 Mar 7 Mar 5 Feb 6 Feb 3
1 km 5:13 5:10 5:08 5:06 5:02 5:06 5:06
2 km 5:22 5:20 5:22 5:22 5:17 5:15 5:21
3 km 5:28 5:26 5:32 5:30 5:24 5:21 5:31
4 km 5:34 5:31 5:37 5:33 5:30 5:25 5:37
5 km 5:37 5:34 5:42 5:35 5:33 5:28 5:39
6 km 5:40 5:36 5:47 5:38
7 km 5:43 5:38 5:49 5:40
8 km 5:46 5:41 5:51 5:42
9 km 5:49 5:43 5:52 5:45
10 km 5:50 5:44 5:53 5:47

 

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