I awoke this morning to pitch black darkness. I wasn't sure about getting up to run before daylight had even hinted at its arrival, but I did it anyway. I can't let darkness slow me down. I took my time stretching and hydrating hoping for a hint of light through the windows but after 20 minutes it was still just dark so I hopped in the car and drove to the park in a light drizzle.
I set out for my warm up walk in the drizzly darkness. I was planning on a 4.5 mile run and knew that to increase my mileage I would need to take it a little easier today. I started out at an easy jog, just a little slower than 10:00/mile and just decided I would try to hold as close to that pace as possible for the entire run. For once, I was able to hold myself to that instead of pushing to see how fast I could go and not die. For now I'm okay with just maintaining my current speed. I'll probably try to push a little harder over the next few weeks, but this week and next I'm just going to work on increasing my mileage to 5 miles before working on my speed in earnest in preparation for my next 5k.
I'm pleased with my current fitness level. I think it's safe to say I'm in better physical condition today than I've ever been in my life. I enjoy comparing my more recent runs to runs just a month or two ago as far as heart rate is concerned. For example, I ran 4.53 miles today at an average pace of 10:11/mile and my average heart rate was 154 bpm. Less than a month ago on February 29 I ran a shorter distance of 4.09 miles at an average pace of 10:42/mile but had an average heart rate of 159, or 5 bpm faster than today's longer/faster run. I like knowing that I'm not just running and swimming for the fun of it (and it's not always fun), but that I'm also doing something very good for my body.
Today's Stats: I did 4.53 miles in 46:09 for an average pace of 10:11/mile. I never really felt like I was pushing myself, it was just a slow easy jog at a pace I felt like I could have maintained for at least another mile or two.
Next Up: I'll swim in the morning, hopefully repeating the success of yesterday's workout, run Thursday, take a day off on Friday, then go for a 5 mile or so run within view of the Great Smoky Mtns National Park Saturday.
Bonus: Official results were posted overnight for the GYRIG 5K. I came in with an official time of 28:21 at a 9:08/mile pace. That was good enough for 92nd out of 319 overall and 20th out of 41 in my AG. That's not too bad. At least I was in the top half of my AG this time. I was 30 seconds behind the next closest competitor in my AG. I've found that Male 30-39 is a tough group. 4 of the top 10 overall finishers were in my AG with times ranging for 20:36 to 21:08 for those 4 finishers.
Here's my motivation for my next 5K: If I had gone 1 full minute faster, or 19 seconds per mile, I would have moved up 3 places to 17th in my AG. Cutting off 2 minutes from my time, which is my goal, would have only moved me up one more spot to 16th in AG. To get to the top 10, I would have had to have run 2:45 faster than I did. Needless to say, there are some pretty fast dudes out there and if I hope to compete with them I'm going to have to really push my personal limits.
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