Skip to main content

Joined 10k Race

I registered for a 10-kilometer race in April.  It's good to have a goal to keep me motivated and on track. I ran a 10-miler last year and several half-marathon's earlier. A 10k is not a hard distance, but I haven't been running long runs since the summer. This race is in one direction, and is all downhill, so I should be able to get my fastest pace. My best 10k I finished in 57 min, which is better than my target of 1 hour.

If I want to get down to 50 min, that's a target pace of almost 8 min/mile, which is a stretch to maintain, even downhill, but I can try.

Moreover, all my previous races were before I knew about my allergies. My race breakfast was typically a nut-laden energy bar, and often I would carry almonds for the road. That, as I found out since, really impacted my sinuses and my breathing. Will be interesting to see how my performance improves after removing that contaminant, and also after the months of reshaping my glutes and stretching my hip flexors.

This gives me about 10 weeks to train for it.  I'll be following a training plan of about three runs a week, with progressively longer runs over the weeks (from 3-7 miles). I will try to maintain my weights routine, but it will be a challenge to do three runs a week and two weight sessions.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Staying the Path

Sooner or later, every exercise plan stumbles upon obstacles, such as work demands, travel, weather, or injury. Following are the ones I encountered over the past five years. I will address each in turn in later posts, along with my response to each challenge. Finding the time to exercise. Schedule disruptions such as illness, travel or extended work commitments. Monotony: Boredom from doing the same routines and running over the same trails. Being a single-parent: I have shared custody of my daughter, which imposes the added challenge of integrating my exercise with my parenting.   Weather: a significant factor for exercising outdoors. Trail conditions: ice, rain, mud, potholes, construction closures, etc., can interfere with our planned activities. Injuries. Specific adaptations because of lifestyle. For example, I live in a townhouse, so end up doing stairs twice as often as usual, while my work involves sitting in front of the computer for long hours. These ha...

First Run in Weeks

The humidity over the last few weeks kept me mostly indoors. I walked here and there, but I couldn't even contemplate running in 90% relative humidity, even with cooler temperatures in the 70s. Yesterday, the clouds finally cleared up and a partly sunny sky invited me to go outdoors. First I thought about a long walk, but when I saw the humidity was down to 70%, I couldn't resist putting on my running shoes and heading out. Turtles basking in the late summer sun after days of cloudy weather. It was a good run, though more on the humid side, and a sweat bath when the wind is to my back. I ended up running 2.4 miles around the lake. The construction is almost completed on the opposite side of the trail, flattening out a severe 30-40 bank in the trail that was gradually steepened by erosion. The new flat trail is nice and so much easier on my ankles. Today, the main residual soreness is in my glutes. That's a good sign. It means the program I've been following to ...

Feta and Avocado

I always liked feta cheese with slices of cucumber, so was surprised when a friend of mine served it with avocados instead. I loved it, and that flavor has since grown on me. Quick and easy breakfast meal. Feta cheese and avocado, with arugula and dried (Moroccan) black olives.