Sunday a day of rest? I don't think so...

(graphic courtesy of http://www.wohill.com/tags/cartoon)

Joy here...Judeo-Christian tradition holds that after spending six days creating the world, including all the plants, animals, and Adam & Eve, God decided he needed a day off. Ever since then various Christian sects, societies, and nations with Christian roots have used Sunday as a kind of day off or rest day. Well, today is Sunday. But since I was busy yesterday watching a local bike race when I was supposed to be doing my "long run" of this week, running up and down a giant hill to get a good vantage of the racers struggling up the climb, and then waiting to watch them at the finish line, I had to take my "long run" today. No rest for me. To begin with, my calves were a little bit sore since I wore my Vibram Five Fingers all day yesterday, thus giving my muscles a bit of a workout with all that walking around. But the weather isn't quite so steamy hot today, and so with a clear blue sky, a light breeze, and the sun high overhead, I put some ice in with my waterbottle, put on my Garmin, and headed out the door for my run.

I started running at about 5:45min/km for the first 10km or so. I felt good and the rhythm seemed pretty natural. My mind was wandering, and I was thinking about all sorts of things and so it felt rather meditative for those first 10kms. I then had one of my chocolate flavoured GUs and decided to pick up the pace for the final 5kms. So I tried to stay running at about 5:20min/km. I have never run that fast before. Even my race pace for the 10km race in Singapore was around 5:35min/km, but everything seemed to work, and it didn't feel like I was running all that hard, so I figured I might as well try to hold that 5:20min/km pace for 5kms. I mean, what did I have to lose? If I couldn't hold the pace, then I told myself I'd slow down. But in the end, I was able to hold that pace for the whole final 5kms. My final stats for today's run are:

15.27km in 1:25:12 for an average pace of 5:35km/min.

I'm pretty pleased with that, because that was my race pace for 10km and today's run proves to me that I can hold that for 15kms. Now I just have to up the distance another 6km in order to be prepared for the 1/2 marathon. Then I can worry about improving my speed as well.

I'm not sure why everything seemed to click today. Maybe it's because I took two days off running; maybe it's because my last run was Thursday's tempo workout and maybe it's had the desired effect; maybe it's because my wiggly-toe Vibram Five Fingers really are making my feet and lower legs stronger; maybe it was due to the chia seeds that I put in my breakfast smoothie; or maybe I should just be more philosophical and realize that just as I can have a bad day, I can always have a good day too. So maybe today was just a good day...

...which means that maybe next time will be a bad day.