Ran the Virtual 10K with my Run Club

I woke up at 7AM this morning on a quest: to do my Long Slow Run while participating in a "Virtual 10K".  I did a Virtual 5K on Thanksgiving Day so I figured this would be equally fun.  I was supposed to run 6 miles on my LSR anyway, so adding .2 miles to the distance wasn't gonna kill me.

I also decided to do my run today with members of my Run Club.  It sounds strange but, I joined the Run Club this summer and since that time I have only run with them during the Hot Chocolate 15K race (I ran it with 3 members of the club).  Their regular runs were either conflicted with other runs I had planned, or their distances were further than I could go.

So today, I got dressed and headed to LifeTime.  I met up with 6-7 other members and we were off and running!  Four of them were way faster than I was planning to run, and the others were slower than my pace.  So I ended up running by myself.  But it was still cool to know others were out there with me.  I considered listening to music since I was kinda 'goin solo' but decided not to waste the time to dig out my Nano.

The first two miles were pretty normal. I was running at a 10:00/mm pace, the route was a bike path with rolling hills, nothing I couldn't handle.  Then I came to "Cardiac Hill" (where I do my Hill Work).  My friend Mike warned me last night that the Run Club's route includes the "hill".  I figured I could handle it.  Well running down the hill wasn't too bad.  Then I hit the Illinois Prairie Path and before I knew it, I had reached 3.1 miles in about 30 minutes.  Time to turn around.

Now, going back to the club was a bit more challenging.  The first one was Cardiac Hill which was about 3/4 mile in front of me.  When I got to the base of the hill, I decided to run up the hill all the way like I do in my hill training.  This would be a new experience since my legs had run 3.5 miles already.  So I surged forward and took the hill at a 10:15/mm pace!  It was tough!  When I got to the next stop sign, I was winded so I let myself walk for about 2 minutes.

Then I kept moving onward! Only 2.1 miles remaining!  Of course, all those 'rolling hills' of the route felt a lot harder to my legs now than they did in the beginning of the run. LOL!  I decided not to check my watch and just keep running.  And before I knew it, I was almost back at the beginning of the bike path.  I checked my watch and I was at 6.1 miles!  So I did a little sprint until I reached 6.21 and then I logged the lap on the watch (finish time 1:06:27) and walked the remaining .3 miles back to the club, where I saw three of the Run Club members chatting.  I got one of them to take my photo before I headed in to take a shower.

I am very pleased with the finish time, as well as my performance on the route itself and particularly the Cardiac Hill.  The 10:42 overall pave isn't going to break any records, but it is a LSR pace I am comfortable with.  I posted my results on the Virtual 10K page and sometime next week, I will find out how I did compared with the other participants.

A great way to start Christmas Eve!  Afterwards, my wife and I had breakfast at the IHOP, shopped for stocking stuffers, and eventually made it back to the house.  Now I can relax before my daughter and I sing a special duet ("Mary, Did you Know") during the Christmas Eve service at our church.  I am really excited about that!

A week of lower mileage

This week is my first 'tapering' week.  On Monday, I had a good TEAM Fitness workout! A new trainer was doing the class now, Dee, and she is tough. She is an Army officer and she is no nonsense! Oh man, did my shoulders ache afterwards! We did many minutes of push-ups; we did many minutes of various types of sit-ups and crunches; we worked triceps, bicep curls, LOTS of step-ups holding a heavy ball over our heads, squats, shoulder press, jumping jacks with a 18lb bar, and leg lifts.  Thankfully, this class was only an hour! That'll teach me to miss a few sessions! I had some twinges in my right knee, leftover from my LR, so I was very careful with the jumping jacks and squats but it feels fine now.

This morning, I went for an easy run through the neighborhood.  3.5 miles at a 10:00/mm pace and everything felt pretty good.  I wanted to run further but I had started out later than usual, and I did not want to be late to work.

Saturday will be my 'reduced' Long Run of 6 miles.  I am going to run a "Virtual 10K" sponsored by a runner/blogger.  Why not, right?  And that will end my first week of Tapering -- only 10 miles!  That just seems weird, running such a small number of miles for the week.  Next week is going to be pretty much the same.  Weird!