Rebuilding

Rebuilding my mileage has been going quite well, despite the issues with my watch. This afternoon, I headed out for a 10K run with a memorized path and waypoints to manually plot out my pacing. The plan was to target a 4:45 pace, knowing that I'd likely end up going a bit faster than that.

As such, I headed out at 5:00pm along the planned route. For a change, the pacing in the first kilometer was right on target - hitting the mark exactly 4:45 after I started. I ended up accelerating a bit in the second kilometer, hitting the mark at 9:20 (about 10 seconds ahead of schedule). To correct for that, I pulled it back a little but still hit the 3K mark about 5 seconds faster than pace (at 13:00). I pulled back a little more, but the downhill grade of the next section counteracted that and I did the fourth kilometer at the same 4:40 pace.

The fifth kilometer is mostly composed of a mild uphill portion (~300m@+4%, ~500m@+2.5%) and managed to hit the target pace right on, hitting the mark at 23:25. After that point, I didn't have any waypoints until the 9K mark so I was on my own. Unfortunately, after the climb my legs got used to the higher output so my pacing was a little fast. In the future, I'll have to remember to memorize a waypoint at 6K as well so that I can correct for this issue.

A little after the 7K mark I was approaching a cloud of smoke (which I'd later figure out was a fire in a public washroom in the park), but as I had no way to gauge my pace/distance if I went off course I went through it anyway. I made it through in about 20 seconds, and it didn't pose much of an issue beyond making breathing a little more difficult during that phase. I had to pass through it again at the 8.3km point but, as before, my breathing recovered immediately after clearing it.

At about 8.7km I had to stop briefly (35 seconds) prior to crossing a major street, and eventually hit the 9K mark at 42:15. My pace over this segment (5-9km) averaged out to about 4:38/km, working out to about 4:29/km without counting the traffic stop. A good deal faster than planned however it was a comfortable pace and, other than the smoky portions, my breathing remained in control for the duration.

Since my pace was going pretty well, I allowed myself to accelerate in the last kilometer. I hit the 10K mark at 46:34, maintaining an average pace of 4:19/km in the last segment. Overall, however, my average pace was 4:39/km (4:36/km minus the traffic stop) which was not too far off from the plan. Still some work to be done in order to increase the control I have when running by feel, but the only way to get better at that is to do more sessions like this.


Other than this session, I did a 30K ride earlier this morning at an average speed of about 29.8km/h (about 38 seconds shy of 30km/h). Including the cool-down, I covered 32.26K in 1:05:48. My cycling has definitely improved significantly since I've been putting more time into it over the last few weeks. Not a whole lot of time left until the weather makes it difficult to continue, but I'm doing what I can to take full advantage of things in the meantime. I'll likely be picking up an indoor trainer to do some cycling in the Winter, but I doubt that I will be able to spend much more than 90 minutes staring at a wall ;)