Times Colonist Part 1

Today I ran my first big race of the year, the Times Colonist 10K. It is a good gauge of how I am doing after my winter training. My unofficial time (i.e. my own stopwatch) was 47:10. It was a fairly comfortable run that started out with me getting passed by just about everybody, as usual. The race had almost 13000 entrants so I spent alot of time getting boxed in and trying to politely run through crowds.

I'll post more when I get my official time tomorrow.

Speed Training and Sharpening

I have finally entered the speedwork phase of my training. The mileage is cut down a little bit but the tempo and cadences are definitely faster. The main training days are Wednesday (880 meter or half mile repeats) and Thursday (1-3 miles at six minute mile pace.) These training sessions are done on a treadmill. I am up to 6 half mile repeats at 9.5 mph (6:18 minutes/mile) and eventually will work up to 12 half mile repeats at that pace over the next 6-8 weeks. I can finish one mile at 10 mph and will keep working until I can run that pace for 3 miles straight.

My weekend running (Friday - Monday) consists of 6-14 mile runs with sections run at my goal pace or faster. I also practice my race plan. My race plan is to run the first 4.5km at 4:30 km pace/cadence. The second half of the race will be run at 3:30km pace/cadences.

Its amazing to think that a year ago I was injuring myself trying to run 5 minute kilometers. Now that is a warmup pace.