10k ?! Yowza!

Today's WOD: Run 10k.

Results: 1:22 minus a few seconds for misunderstanding where the finish line was.

Comments: This was nearly twice as far as I have ever run or at least - well - i actually have no idea how long i actually ran for on the thanksgiving trail run since I took a detour - and apparently, I didn't even manage to put my total time in my blog post. That was pretty dumb. 1:07 sounds kinda familiar ... At any rate, it's kind of apples to oranges since there were no hills this time around and there were a TON on that trail - but i still don't think it was anywhere near 10k.

Anyway. I am very pleased with my performance today. I set my watch for 3 minutes on, one minute off, and I managed to stick to that right up until nearly the very end (1:08 in or so), and ultimately it wasn't my aerobic capacity or even my strength that gave out on me (though it probably would have pretty quickly) the reason i finally couldn't keep running was a bad choice of socks.

Aggravatingly, I forgot to really consider what socks I was wearing, and chose a regular old pair of cotton athletic socks - the kind with a sort of terry-cloth like interior, which was a big mistake. By the last 10-20% of the run, the constant and repeated striking of the ball of my foot against the pavement just rubbed the balls of my feet raw, and I just couldn't ignore the pain anymore. I was extremely relieved when i finally took off my socks to see that I hadn't actually caused any damage. it sure felt like i had. I really tried to gut it out through the pain, I could SEE the end of my route and it was CLOSE. I even tried running heel strike, but I found that to be incredibly jaring, and couldn't keep it up.

I managed to avoid getting a side stitch the entire time. And I feel like I did a pretty good job of keeping my posture neutral. There was one time where I started to get a stitch in my left shoulder, of all places, but I made a conscious effort to release the tension from my shoulders and stand up straight, and fortunately a 1 minute walking period came up pretty quickly, and I was able to walk it out, and it didn't come back. It was really only starting around the 1 hour mark that the 1 minute walking breaks really didn't feel long enough to get my wind back.

By the end of the run - everything was complaining - my right hip and my shoulders in particular. Has anyone else had the experience of their arms getting tired on really long runs? They were tired to begin with from all the pushups I've done this week ...

I ran with an iPod for the first time today, and at first had a really hard time navigating the ear phones and the cord and the volume and it was all just in my way, and while i mostly liked having the music, I was seriously considering taking it off just to get rid of the annoyance factor. It also made it hard to hear my watch chiming at me to to tell me when to walk or run - i missed a couple of them. But after enough futzing I finally found a good setup with one earphone in and the other tucked into my vest, and was finally able to mostly just ignore it and enjoy the music. I especially liked running to Green Day's Holiday/Boulevard of Broken Dreams. The song Meatloaf sings from the Rocky Horror picture show was the only one i really didn't like running to. There was just something wrong with the beat, and I couldn't get a good running or breathing cadence going.

Overall, I actually really enjoyed myself today. Next time I'll do better. I'll be able to stick to my running schedule, and maybe even be able to bump it up to 4 minutes on 1.5 or 1 minute off or something. Tomorrow I'm just hoping to be able to walk ... ;-)

OK, that was hard.

My first ever 10k. Twice as far as the furthest I've ever run before. Granted it was easier in some ways in that it was VERY flat and mostly paved, but damn this run messed me up. Between the DOMS from yesterday's workouts and this, I'm functioning at a rather drastically diminished capacity right now.

Run 10k

45:56 RX

Gita set the route, and ran in front of everyone to chalk arrows - but it was a very straightforward route. He ran it in 42 minutes, which (for him) was pacing himself. I came in third, behind a new guy named Chris who runs up in the hills a lot. He and I were basically neck-and-neck for the first half or two-thirds, but he pulled ahead on the final couple miles, and finished a couple minutes ahead of me.

My new playlist was awesome, but has some unforeseen traps. "Psychobilly Freakout" came on about halfway through, and gave me an artificial hit of adrenaline that I capitalized on to sprint past Chris. That song could rupture your heart if you're not careful. But that did NOT last, and I only stayed ahead of him for 20 yards or so, then payed heavily for my ambition over the next half mile or so until I recovered a maintainable pace. Other highlights: "Freedom" by Jimi Hendrix was fantastic, and "Motorbreath" by Metallica also sounded really, really good. Time really stretches out when you're running, so a 9-minute song like "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" lasts an eternity. Not bad at the beginning, I found, but towards the end I really preferred the shorter songs, because each song comes with an attendant boost of "oh goody" endorphines when it first comes on and is a good one.