Starting the Program

Man, I hate running in the afternoon.

My program, which kicked off today, called for 2 hours 15 minutes, plus warm up and cool down runs of 4-5ks and 5 x 100 metre striding and a stretch before starting my long run. I jogged pretty slowly over to the Bay Run (4.4k in 25:26) at about 1:30pm, did some strides, stretched and set off. Tried to keep pace around 4:50 per k and felt pretty good for the first hour and a half, basically running the dog park extension of the Bay Run up to Balmain Shores and doing a u-turn there.

Started to battle a bit mentally after an hour and a half, but was able to stay within pace. I was running with water only (see previous comments), and started to wilt over the last eight km or so, really just wanting to get the run over and done with. My pace actually picked up a little bit in the last four km, presumably that sniff of finishing, but not enough to drive it under 4:50 per km.

Still, 2:15:01 for 27.81km, giving an average pace of 4:51 was a pretty decent hit out. Whilst the temperate was in the low twenties, the sun was quite strong and humidity was low (welcome to dry mouth syndrome), so I was certainly conscious of being warm during the run.

Of some concern was the recurrence of my sore right foot. I ran without the orthotics through all of the weekend, so suspect that may have had something to with it.

I have to run for an hour ten tomorrow morning - suspect that will be pretty slow...