Category: Sport
Tuesday ten
It's funny how dramatic a 9% increase in pace from a leisurely 6 min/km down to 5:30min/km feels. At 10km/h it's a leisurely jog, while at 10.9km/h right now for me it feels much more like serious running (and the HR skyrockets...).
Sunday 9k
Now trying to run a bit faster than the usual 6 min/km pace on 10 km and shorter runs.
Thursday Twelve
Sunday 18k loop
The summer warmth is gone and replaced by a +14C grey drizzle - which is just fine for running.
about 1 min walking breaks every 2 km as described in Galloway's book show up as dips in the HR graph:
Thursday Ten
Music on the run - cheap
Tried a new MP3 player today: SKU34705 from dealextreme. This 11 $ player ships without a memory card, which will cost about another 11 euros for a 4 Gb micro-SD card. The build quality is not great - but I wasn't expecting too much for 11 $. It works however, and there are no cords since the memory-stick, player, and battery all fit in the back. That does make the headphones a bit more back-heavy than the conventional corded Sennheiser PMX I've used before (39.90eur at the local shop, for only the headphones!). The battery is charged from the USB-port, and the SD-card shows up as a disk-drive in Ubuntu automagically without installing any drivers.
Hope the flu is finally defeated now. 6 k at something close to 5:47/km today did not feel too bad.
2:12:56 Helsinki City Run
Despite forecasts of rain during the week the weather cooperated nicely and we only got wet after 18 km or so.
At about 14 km my legs started to feel heavy, and after the last gatorade+water station at 17 km I started walking all the uphills.
I finished in 6345th place (yay!) out of 13100 runners, and the timing-chip time was 2:12:56, my own garmin said 2:12:59, and my official time (start-gun to finish) was 2:13:16.
Results and info here: http://www.helsinkicityrun.fi
Sunday seventeen
The books seem to tell me that to gain endurance you don't have to run fast, and often recommend a pace 90s to 2min/mile slower than race-pace for long runs. That's around 6:30 to 7min/km pace if race-pace is a 4h marathon. My avg. pace was 6:48/km today at avg. HR 154. A recovery jog on Monday or Tuesday, and then a faster 5k on Wednesday or Thursday - that should be about the final prep for the half-marathon next Saturday.
This scenic loop is close to what they use for part of the Helsinki City Marathon (2009 map here).
Thursday eleven
This pace is slightly slower than a 2 hour half-marathon, but that is partly because of the traffic-lights and other obstacles in the course. Kilometers 9, 10, and 11 felt pretty good - I wonder how much beyond 11k the wall lies?
In other news, lucid lynx is out, and my desktop machine is taking forever to download about 2600 Mb of upgrades.