Half of a Half

Today was a beautiful day for a run! I was a little worried about how I might feel after yesterday's faster than anticipated 5 km, so I thought I would just go out and take it easy. It was sunny, 4* and only a little bit windy. I wanted to go just over 10 kms, and planned a route that was 10.7 kms. I know exactly where the 1 km point is on this route because it was the 1 km to go marker when I ran around the lake last year. I felt like I was going pretty slow (which, compared to how I started out yesterday, I was), but when I looked at my watch I was at 6:10. That might be slow for some, but it seemed a little fast for me since this is my longest run since a half marathon last October.

I tried to slow it down a bit, and thought that I had. I couldn't remember exactly where the 2nd or 3rd km marker were, but at the 4th km, I'd actually sped up. Thinking that maybe I was remembering that wrong, but knowing I knew exactly where the 5th km was, I checked again when I got there - 29:50. I was going faster than yesterday, but without a walk break, and I still had 5.7kms to go.

The thing is, I felt great so after the 6th km, I stopped looking at my watch and worrying too much about how fast or slow I was running. The wind picked up a bit and again I thought I slowed down around that point, but wasn't really worried. I knew that I could finish the run without a break, and as I'd planned on taking it slow, I was more interested in getting the kms down than how long it took me to do them. Turns out, if I slowed down, I didn't slow down by much, or must have somehow made up the time, because at the 10 km mark, my watch said 1:01:04. I finished at 1:05:14, feeling terrific.

I've never run a 10km race, but would like to run one in under an hour. This seems very attainable now. I've been planning to register for the BMO Vancouver 1/2 Marathon on May 2nd. I will be in Vancouver for work anyway the week leading up to the race, so I can just extend my stay for a couple of days. I just wanted to run for more race experience, and to do better than my first half last year, but after today's run I think I should set a real time goal.

Off to Prince George to buy my reward for the week: a new sports bra! Woot! (See, practical, and yet I still get excited about it).