10k update

Sporting Life 10K number 2 - COMPLETE!

My original goal was to beat the time that I ran last year, which was 1:12:23.

As you may recall, this time last year was warm and sunny, so I was able to go out and train relatively well. The longest run that I had done before the 10K was 5.6km. Not great considering that I had hoped to be comfortable with 7k and up beforehand, but I had been sick in the weeks leading up to race day.

This year, Mother Nature had other plans. It has been cold, rainy, sometimes snowing, and WINDY for months. Unfortunately, this meant that up until recently I had not been training very regularly. I had also been running on a treadmill mostly, because it was so awful outside. Once I got properly equipped with warm weather running clothes it became easier to go out and run, but my longest pre-10K run was a mere 3.5km. Uh oh.

In addition, I recently went to a sports doctor to find out why my left knee always hurts. Turns out that my IT band is tight enough that it is actually pulling my kneecap out of place. My knee also hyperextends when I walk, leaving me feeling unstable and lots of pain in certain yoga poses. This prevented me from running for quite a while, though lately it has actually been ok, so I've been trying to work through it. The doc recommended that I go for a combination of physio, acupuncture and an RMT. Wheeeee!

Race recap:

• Pre-race: tummy wasn't feeling very well for some reason. I opted to have a pretty light breakfast of toast with peanut butter, a cup of herbal tea, and a bottle of water for the road to the start line. Tummy continued to protest, but seemed to settle itself reasonably well by the time the starting gun fired.
• Km 1-3: feeling pretty good, still running mostly downhill. The wind is beginning to pick up, but I'm wearing my rain-and-windproof jacket with zip-vents (that never opened during this run), plus a long-sleeved shirt underneath. Despite this, I'm a little chilly.
• Km 4-6: My muscles are beginning to cramp up a bit. I'm now past the longest pre-race run, and my body is not happy about it! First, my butt is cramping. Then my abdomen. The wind is now fierce as we enter downtown Toronto and the wind-tunnel effect of the tall buildings.
• Km 7-9: NOW I'm cold. I'm not even sweating anymore, despite wearing a non-breathable jacket because it is effing WINDY. I convince myself that I need to keep running to stay warm, because if I stop running I'll just freeze to death. My knees are angry about this decision and force me to stop for walk breaks more often than I'd like. We can see those annoying fast people who finished the race already, wearing their medals and finishing T-shirts, who decided that it wasn't enough to run the coldest 10K of my life, they also feel the need to run BACK. Jerks.
• Km 9-10: My stomach has begun to grumble. Loudly. Like, loud enough that I can actually hear it through my headphones and music. Should have eaten more for breakfast :( But look! There's the finish line! I keep running so that the photographers standing on the sidelines will still take photos of me that I can see on the website where I'm not walking. Alas, I'm pretty sure that I look like I'm going to die of hypothermia and exhaustion anyway.

So, by the time I reached km 8 or so, I knew that I wasn't going to beat my time from last year. I was a bit upset about that, because I had hoped to be able to see some improvement in my running. Given the weather complication and lack of training though, I was ok with it! I opted not to get hung up on a goal that I knew I wasn't going to make, and instead made a new deal with myself - aim to beat 1:20.

And you know what?

I did! 1:18:58 :)

I'm feeling happy about meeting my revised goal, and even happier that these extra challenges that I've dealt with have given me more knowledge to help me train a little bit more effectively for next time.

Assuming that my knee gets well soon, I'm still hoping to train for that 1/2 marathon!