Genine and I started out our morning by going into the city to run the Scotland Run 10K in Central Park. We left home a little later than we wanted and we didn't have such good luck finding parking. Last week was a fluke perhaps. There was still an hour before the race but packet pickup was only 30 more minutes. So I decided I'd pull into a lot and ask how much to park for 5 hours. $48 was the answer. I put it into reverse and I'm back on the street just in time to watch someone pull out of their parking spot. Awesome.
The weather is perfect today. It's going to be very comfortable in Shorts and a T-shirt today.
I'm not sure if there were more people racing this weekend or what was going on. It was wasn't the nice relaxed situation we had last weekend at the 4 miler. Not a big deal, we got our race packets, bag checked and whatnot without a problem. It just didn't leave me enough time to warm up.
I was bib 2686, so I was in the 3rd corral and it really looked like there could be 2000 or so people ahead of me. Really not a big deal. I put myself in the back of the corral because I know I'm not going to go all out today. No warm-up and I'm really not feeling great. Oddly enough even tho' I'm telling myself I'm not going to race it. I think I told Genine that I was hoping to manage a 7:30 min/mile pace... That really doesn't make sense.
Gun goes off, we wait, we jog, we wait and jog over the start line. It's congested and the corral thing must not have been well enforced. There are just too many people shuffling along getting in the way of everyone. (of course the solution to my problem is to start running 6:30's and better so I'm always up front, right?) Anyhow, I know it will probably get better after a couple miles. Speaking of miles. Here comes the first mile marker and I'm in at 7:52. HR Avg 169. I really couldn't have run any faster than that, I was moving with the herd. Not a big deal.
I forgot to mention my foot pod was dead. So I've got my heart rate on my watch but no pacing or distance information.
Seeing 7:52 made me kick it into gear. I know I said I'm not going to go all out but I'm not going to jog it either. So I make it to mile marker 2 in 7:22 with 182 HR avg. That's more like it.
Now this next mile is a part of Central Park that I've never run before. We are running the north end of the park today. As I'm running along I suddenly hear "GO MATT". There was Ruth cheering, nice work spotting me on the run Ruth! So I've been told this part of the park is quite hilly. I do alright with hills typically and I can't say there was anything out of the ordinary about this section of the course. I get to marker 3 in 7:29 with 182 HR avg but 192 max.
I've been trying to keep my heart rate right around 185. That's a comfortable number for me, it means I'm working but I'm not dying.
I don't remember what the hills were like for this next section. All I know is I was somewhat surprised to see 7:50 on my watch when I hit mile marker 4 and 188 avg HR.
I wanted to make some of that time back up but I didn't want to take my HR up too far. I really focused on my stride and my arms for the next mile and I got to mile 5 in 7:31 186 avg HR. Amazing what a little focus can do for you.
Okay, so about 1.25 miles to go, I'm really not going to change a thing. I just stayed focused and got to Mile 6 in 7:39 with 188 avg HR.
Alright, I'll turn it up a bit for the finish. My next split was 1:32 which is about a 7:10 min/mile, 198 max HR. It's always a bummer if you don't have a kick at the end and you watch people pass in the final 200m.
My finish time was 47:17 or a 7:37 min/mile pace. I'll take that. I couldn't help but think how much more comfortable that run was for me compared to my last 3 races. Not once today was I pushing hard enough that I felt like I should stop and take a break. A much less mentally stressful race today.
Now I'll admit when I got home, I looked up the MacMillan pace charts to see just how badly I sandbagged today. It said I should have finished in 45:55 or a 7:23 min/mile pace. That makes sense to me. If I would have run that fast today, my brain would have been screaming at me to stop starting around mile 2/3. Ha ha!
After the race, Genine and I met up with Ruth and Heather for Brunch. That was great. I haven't had a chance to catch up with them in quite awhile. It definitely was the more enjoyable part of our trip to the city.
When we get home, Genine tried to take a quick nap while I loaded the bikes onto the car and got all our stuff together. I don't think she got much sleep but at least it was a bit of a break.
For my bike today, I wanted to put in an effort that would be a little bit easier in comparison to my run today. Meaning it should be a comfortable fun ride. I was really surprised at how good my legs felt. Maybe the warm weather? Our ride didn't include much in the way of hills (that's probably why the legs felt good) but we got in 26.5 miles of really nice riding.
Last stop, the pool for a short swim. I did 5 100's very slowly as a warmup. My ribs on the right side were somewhat tweaked, so I made a point of not going for speed at all today (guess that's today's theme). I just did 2 more sets of 500m and figured that completed the triathlon for the day.
Oddly enough, I felt better after doing all that than I did before the start of the run in Central Park today. I hope I'm still saying that tomorrow morning.
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