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...

Exercising Outdoors

Had a nice one hour walk today around the lake. Under the towering trees shading the trail, I saw a caterpillar climbing a silk thread. Every day that I walk, run, hike, or bike outdoors, I see a small wonder of nature, be it a great blue heron wading in the pond, turtles sunning on a log, or deer almost perfectly camouflaged in the thickets. Last week, I saw a hummingbird hovering near a treetop, and a rainbow patch next to the setting sun. Over the years, I have seen red foxes and beavers. Caterpillar climbing on a silk thread. Every exercise session outdoors is an adventure. Even walking the same trail over and over, you see different things at different times of day, and as the seasons change. It is a refreshing way of breaking the monotony of exercise . For me, it wins hands-down over working out in a gym or a treadmill. Fresh air and Vitamin D are a welcome bonus, and being closer to nature is refreshing and healing. The outdoors often pose a challenge. Trail conditions a...

Layer Cake

My mother's recipe, and a favorite of my daughter. Needs no baking. The idea is to arrange layers of tea biscuits (known as petit beurre , which can be found in Middle Eastern grocery stores, among others), with alternate layers of custard and chocolate pudding in between. Instead of custard, which is hard to find nowadays, I substitute any kind of pudding I like. Layer cake with chocolate, tapioca, and custard. Shown below is my latest with layers of Kozy Shack chocolate and tapioca puddings, and a powder pudding mix that I combine with milk over heat, like custard. I skipped the eggs on the last one, to give it more of a custard consistency that hardens when cooled. Depending on the shape of your baking tray, you may need to cut out parts of some of the biscuits. I used a 9"x9" tray. I also recommend putting the chocolate pudding at the bottom since it's thicker and will hold the consistency better. Once the layers are arranged, cover the tray with foi...