Sunday, May 20, 2012

3000km before mid year?

Distance 43.3km [total: minimalist 269.6km: Barefoot 2815.3km] Week 20

Monday, 14-May. 9.8km

I'm leaving work earlier to try and catch as much light for my run as I can. I have a kind of race against the sunset to see how much distance I can cover before the sun dips below the horizon. I can get to the beach at about 4.45pm and I have around 40 minutes before the sun has disappeared into the southern ocean. Very good run tonight, felt quick and pushed my hear rate up into the 140's. I had a bit of a race with a younger runner, I lost out as he was going pretty fast, I couldn't see what his form was like or whether he was heel striking but he ended his run at a car park, I ran on a further 200m. It was hard to say if he could have kept up the speed or if he was just doing a bit of speedwork at the end when he passed me. So far I am not finding the ground too cold but that may be because it was a sunny day and the ground had soaked up the suns energy.

Wednesday, 16-May. 9.8km

Here I am back on the exact same run as on Monday, again nice warm day with a spectacular sunset. The chill sets in pretty quickly once the sun disappears below the horizon. Again a nice quick run but a bit more restrained than the Monday. Rain is due in on Thursday night, Friday morning so I wanted to get my runs in before the end of the week. It was quite dark by the time I gt back to the car. I take it a bit easier once the sun goes down and it's harder to pick out the ground in front of me, no point being a hero and standing on some unseen stone or other object.

Saturday, 19-May. 15.5km

The rain that was supposed to arrived on Thursday and Friday waited until Saturday, it wasn't all that bad though. It rained while I was eating my breakfast but by the time I headed out to the beach there was some sun around and after 7km I could feel plenty of warm sun. The beach sand was cold but I could feel a bit of warm on the wet bitumen path on the foreshore. On the way back I bumped into one of the barefoot runners from IBRD, Jenny, she was going in the opposite direction, as the weather was starting to turn dark again she decided to run back with me. By the time we got to the jetty drizzle was falling and I could see more rain down the beach. I left her at Grange so I could continue on to Henley but I quit before getting there as the cold had started to set into me and the rain was more persistent. It felt good to have a nice warm shower after getting back.

Sunday, 20-May. 8.2km

A late start for me today, it looked chilly out and a bit cloudy but by 10am the cloud had burned off and the sky was blue and there was some warm sun. This made my run far more enjoyable. I padded along my usual loop, observing the morning walkers along the lake path. Past the model boat enthusiasts at the top end of the lake as the intently use their radio controls to maneuver their scaled down sail boats in the calm waters of the lake. I decided to use the lap timer on my watch to see what time I could run the wide concrete path along Sportsmans Drive. It took me 6:10m, then using Google Earth to measure the distance I got 1.28km. That gave me a pace of  4:48/km (7:43m/mile), not too bad for a barefoot runner of 2.8 years.

Neil

No comments:

Post a Comment