Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Cross Country Tuesday

Tuesday Total: 5.2k
Week Total: 15.2k
Month Total: 276.3k
Year Total: 583.1k

Time: 24.29min
Av pace: 4.38min/km
Av Temp: 23.8*c (6.03pm)
Rel. Humidity Av: 52.8%
Wind Spd Avg: 9.7kph (NE)

Today the cross country run was at Sth Curtin oval. It looked like it might be quite a mild day as it rained overnight and in the morning and it was cool and grey. I even had to rummage through my winter woollies to find something to wear to work. However, surprise, surprise, by this afternoon the sun had made an appearance and it had warmed up.

The run included part of the course we ran as part of the vets event on Sunday. It included the hill but what I hadn't factored in was that not only were we running up said hill but on the return trip we would also be running up the other side of the hill. This miscalculation was going to have quite an impact on my race.

The start was fairly slow because of the number of runners tying to get through the underpass and then up the narrow cycle path. Fortunately there were no cyclists coming the other way - they would've got quite a shock being faced with a moving wall of runners! I went up this hill quite hard (too hard now that I think about it). There was a bit where it levelled out and then we headed downhill (and it still didn't register that I was going to have to run up it again very shortly). We did a small loop and then came back via a small patch where it was run on grass - well large clumps of grass which made for challenging running. Then the hill. Oh dear, this was not looking good. I was tired from going out too hard plus still feeling the effects of Sunday's run. It was hot, the hill seemed to go on forever and I was so tempted to walk....but I didn't. I expected hordes of runners to pass me but I think only Chris did near the top and with her encouragement I picked up the pace. Fortunately we were now on the last km downhill and I tried to hang on to the back of Chris, which I sort of did!

It was a hot hard run - mostly my fault because I miscalculated, went out too hard and paid the price.



Splits:
1 - 5.05min/km
2 - 4.03min/km
3 - 4.18min/km
4 - 5.25min/km (hmm, guess where this was!)
5 - 4.32min/km (downhill at last!)

Tomorrow:
medium long run, 21km (last one!)

7 comments:

Black Knight said...

4.38/km is a very good pace despite those 2 uphills. I apologize for my late congrats for your wonderful race! 3.59 after 16 km of warm up: great!

2P said...

Enjoy your last medium long run and your taper CJ - you have really earned it.

Tesso said...

Oooh, nasty hills! Well done CJ.

Ewen said...

That's a timely lesson! If you start cracking out the 4:30 kms from the bottom of Nellies it could end up being a long day ;)

Unknown said...

Be careful, CJ....no more falls please! Hope your legs are in good shape after that last grubbing you had!

Hope we catch up next Wednesday for a meal? I promise to be well!

Anonymous said...

do you ever get disappointed that you go up these hills and never see cafeteria trays at the top for a bit of sit and slide? now don't avoid doing that because it'd be easy, you should see the fabulous crashes you could have.

nicolap said...

ciao,
ho trovato questo blog; vedo che studi italiano; allora un saluto da un runner italiano!