229.5 when I woke up and 228.5 after my morning run.
I was scheduled to do 20 miles today but I could tell before I started that I just didn’t have the mental mindset to do what was needed. I still went for it though – so small victory there.
In the end I did 6.6 miles (3 laps in the park) in 1:08:37 – pretty slow but considering I wasn’t in it mentally it wasn’t too bad. I was never actually out of energy, fuel or breath so it wasn’t a tough run – just wasn’t focused.
I could have gone further quite easily but half way through my second lap I saw that they were setting up for a race in the park. This pretty much shut me down further. I finished the second lap and pushed myself through the third – half way through my second lap I saw that they were getting closer to being ready for the race and that the park was going to get full soon. I called it after the third lap and as I was driving out of the park I saw the first racers wandering around and warming up. Checked later and found out it was a road race put on by the Manitoba Triathlon folks with a 5k, 15k and a kids’ 1k – probably good that I got out when I did.
While I was disappointed that I only got about a third of my run done it was still pretty good that I did something considering my mental state going into the run. Topped with a blister and a leg cramp (haven’t had one of those since September) things were telling me that the run just wasn’t in the cards.
I did learn a few things from this run – If I am going to get up early on the weekend to go to the park to run, I need to have a coffee to get me kick started – it probably would have also helped with the mental state I was in this morning. I think it will also help me to push my pace when I am outside. I also learned that my natural pace has come up since last fall – I usually defaulted to around 5 mph last fall but now I seem to settle around 6 mph without pushing things. Definitely an improvement and I think it should actually be faster once I get used to pushing my pace outside again.
So that means I have 3 training runs before the WPS Half Marathon on May 5th – 5-6-5 miles. These runs will most likely get done on the treadmill based on the weather and the time I will have this week so I won’t get much more chance to practice my outdoor pacing before the race. This means I will have to use the energy of the other racers to help push me and I will have to watch my GPS watch to ensure I am keeping my speed up. I will have to do my training runs this week with an eye to making sure I am not cheating at all on the treadmill and will have to really push the speed as well.
I still want to shoot for under 2 hours on the half – I think I am there physically but it will take some pushing to make it happen. I will certainly have to focus but the tapering this week should help. Plus I intend to fuel as if it was a full marathon, including bringing some road fuel for when I am running, which should help. And coffee – coffee good.
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