All Downhill From Here

21 Km sounds so much further than 13 miles. Gotta love metric 🙂

Since Hubby is working on the weekend and had today off (therefore available for childcare), I traded in last night’s Thursday run for a long run today. I’ll make up for missing Thursday with a mere 10k around home on Sunday.

It was beeeeautiful out, with a fair breeze gusting up from the south. I ran along the Calgary river pathwayfrom Shouldice Park all the way to the top of the curling club hill (there’s a hill or two in the Police Half, have I mentioned that?), and then I ran back. I managed to “run” all the way up the curling club hill in 3 minutes, just before my watch beeped for a walk break. I was pretty happy about that.

There were lots of families, couples, all sorts of rollerbladers, runners, walkers, cyclists, strollers, training wheels, wheelchairs, skateboards, dogs, geese, you name it out on the path today. There were even a couple of kayakers on the river. I had my watch set for a 1 minute walk break every 10 minutes, and some of those intervals seemed to go way faster than others. I took a gel at 55 minutes and ate a Nutrigrain about an hour later. I drank my purple Gatorade during every walk break and was glad for the electrolytes, as it was warm and I was perspiring.

I amused myself by using the Calgary Roadrunner measuring dashes and dots along the pathway near Edworthy Park to gauge my speed. I determined that I was doing less than 3 minutes for 400 m, which extrapolated into less than 12 minute miles. Good enough for me. I had a song in my head about sailing, for some reason, and it was easy to hum when I felt like it.

About half an hour into my run I said hello to one of our Gord’s group runners who was sitting on a park bench overlooking the river. He was still peacefully sitting there on my way back 90 minutes later, and I stopped to chat for a few minutes. This would be my longest run this month until my race on the 30th; I wasn’t in a particular hurry.

After that I had about 3 miles to go. My legs were getting tired, but I took comfort in knowing I would be done soon. I tried not to let my form slip, as I didn’t want to mess any body parts up three weeks before a race. I finished in 2:40, which bodes well for a 2:30 finish at the race, I think. Once I stopped running back at the car my legs were very uncomfortable. I walked around a bit to cool down, but that didn’t seem to help, so I came home and had a shower.

Aside from overall achy legs, I’m feeling pretty good about my 21 km. No chafing issues (thank goodness I got THAT figured out), one minor blister on my right instep (how did that get there? so much for those socks), and no g.i. tract problems either (hallelujah!). I have to admit I’m not sure why I’m planning on training beyond this distance to do twice as much by July, but I’m sure it will come to me later, when I’m not so sore…