Racing against the clock... and winning!

Thursday 21/09/06:

Don't you hate it when you know you can sleep for an extra hour due to doing an evening run, but you're awake at 5.30am anyway?!? Whats that about...?

Had another physio session this afternoon, where she worked on my lower back, glutes and hamstrings and gave my calves a bit of a massage. Have to say the calves hurt the most! But she reckoned everything felt pretty good, so I will be proceeding with easing back into hills this weekend and decide from there when to see her again. Still have a few free sessions up my sleeve but will try to save those for some maintenence closer to race day.

Tonight I was a little late getting my daughter to gym class, due to hitting more traffic than usual on my way home from work and then again on our way to gym. The plan called for 55min steady, but I didn't have that long by the time we got there and there was the ever important stretching and warmup/cooldown to do in that time too. In the end I decided I would still go for two of the 5km loops that I raced around last week, but was aiming for a combination of steady and up-tempo, to get it done in time. I was certainly not in the fiesty mindset of last week and had no intention of running as fast. Thought my legs might feel a bit sluggish after the treatment the physio had dished out just a couple of hours previous.

However once out on the loop my legs were feeling light and quick, so the idea of doing the first loop steady kind of went out the window. I ran a bit faster and still felt good, so just kept going.
I did not think I was going as fast as the previous week tho, so was therefore very surprised when I checked my watch at the 5km mark and found I was just a few seconds over 22mins (as opposed to a few seconds under it last week) !

Well, if you've been reading my blog for a while you'll know I have a very competitive nature, and that includes against myself! That was it, there was no holding me back - it was "game on" as I picked up the pace a bit more and decided to see if I could beat last weeks total time of 43.43 ! Of course every game has to have rules and in this one that means no checking on the time till the end! I certainly was not as focused on nothing but my running like last week, but felt pretty good to be running harder and faster. When I hit a few undulations, I felt like I was flying down the slight declines! By the last km I was pretty sure I had it in the bag and totally focused on holding form and pace. I was happy to find that I could still pick it up over the last part and feel really good. Stopped the watch on 43.32 !

Brisk walk warmup: 3mins
Up tempo/hard paced run: 43.32 (10km)
Jog/walk cooldown: 5mins

Needless to say, I was pretty stoked with this... At the same time, I know I should not be "racing" like this during training, even if it is only against the clock. However I will not be on this course for the next few weeks due to no gymnastics over the school holidays, which start on Monday and therefore won't be tempted to keep trying to better it!

Straight after a hot shower I put on the Skins and am going to try sleeping in them tonight, but I think its going to feel pretty weird. Legs are feeling a little fatigued, be it from the physio or the run... Tomorrow is a rest day anyway, before Saturdays long run.

Oh and as for my toe, I tried covering the nail again for this run with plaster and had some success with it initally, but by the end of the run it had come off, so was a waste of time. When I went back to walking, it really hurt. Tonight I have removed all polish and trimmed it up slightly again, but its so weird how it doesn't actually look like theres anything wrong with it, just hurts like hell!