Canadian Colours

...or "Colors" if you're American.  I'm not sure why our neighbours/neighbors to the south have simplified spelling over the years, but no matter which way you want to spell it, autumn colours are very pretty!

Joy here...Saturday was our "long run," and I figured that I had better try out my rough plan for the 1/2 marathon in order to make this "long run" work for me.  You see, with 21 kms to run, I want to know not only that I can do it, but roughly what my effort should feel like so that I don't do something stupid like run too fast for the first 10 kms and then walk the rest of the way to the finish line, or, alternatively, run too conservatively, and then feel frustrated when I have leftover energy at the end.  My rough plan for Saturday's run, therefore, was to be about 70 minutes of "easy" running, followed by 50 minutes of "hard-ish" running.  My main idea was to test out and see what energy I still had left in my legs for the latter half of the 1/2 marathon after having about 12 kms under my proverbial belt.

The day was lovely and cool-ish, and I loaded up my camelbak with 1.5 L of sports drink to last me the two hours of planned running.  My intention was to just run the first 35 minutes as an easy "warm up" not looking at either heart rate or pace, but just paying attention to how I felt.  Then for the second 35 minutes, I would try to keep my pace at around 5:30min/km, not going faster or slower.  Then for the final 50 minutes, I would only look at heart rate and try to keep my heart rate around 160 beats/min.  I figured with a plan like that, I'd be able to figure out sort of how I might feel when it comes to the actual 1/2 marathon in only 3 weeks.  At times throughout the run, the sky opened up and I would feel a misting of rain, and at other times, the sun would peek through the otherwise thick cloud coverage.  In short, it was a lovely day at the end of summer/beginning of fall.

When I first ran out the door, though, my knees were killing.  I guess after taking Friday off after the successful tempo run wasn't such a hot idea.  I felt like a granny with arthritis and just had to suffer through the knee pain until my legs were warmed up.  Then once they started to feel a bit more loose, the pain lessened and I could relax into the run.

The first 70 minutes went off pretty much without a hitch according to plan.  I ran, and I felt pretty comfortable.  The next 50 minutes, however, were a bit of another story.  I started off with gusto, stepping up my pace and having a chocolate flavoured GU to fuel me up.  But about 25 minutes into that increased pace, with my heart rate steady around 160beats/min., my legs were beginning to feel like someone had poured concrete into each and every muscle.  It became harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other, and I began to feel like some sort of Frankenstein creature with heavy shoes weighing me down.  It took all my willpower to make it the final 25 minutes, because I made the mistake of looking at my watch at the 15 minutes to go moment, and really felt my motivation disappear.  I was like a balloon deflating, and it was purely a "mind over matter" scenario to finish off those final 15 minutes.  The good news is that I did, in fact, finish those 15 minutes, and I finished the run as planned.  So know I have a rough idea of what I can do during the 1/2 marathon.  I can aim for finishing 21 kms in less than 2 hours, and I will try my hardest to finish in around 1:50.  We'll see.

For now, here are the run stats for Saturday:
-Warm Up:  Ran for 34:30:00 for a distance of 5.84km with an average pace of 5:49min/km and average heart rate of 148beats/min
-Easy:  Ran for 35:08:18 for a distance of 6:33km with an average pace of 5:33min/km and average heart rate of 151beats/min
-Hard:  Ran for 50:00:27 for a distance of 9.85km with an average pace of 5:05min/km and average heart rate of 160 beats/min

In case you're wondering, that means that the total run stats are:
Ran for a total distance of 22.02km in 1:59:38.  So that means that I ran more than the 1/2 marathon distance in less than 2 hours!  Now if only I can pull that off on October 17th...

Over and out,
Joy