Fueled on cake

It was cake o'clock at 9.30am today. A work colleague likes to bake cakes using new recipes and we are the guinea pigs. I'm not complaining because she is such a great cook and we haven't had a bad cake yet. Not sure if this is part of a marathon training diet but I do tend to improvise! Anyway the first cake was at 9.30am - now I have to say, at this point, that I don't usually eat cake this early in the morning but how could I resist, when everyone else was sitting around me doing just that - eating cake. The next cake was at 11am for our section manager's birthday - this was a very rich, very chocolatey mud cake. So rich, in fact, that I could only eat half my slice and left the rest for later on.

This afternoon was the first of the Cross Country series at Weston Park. It was a very warm and sunny 29*C. I managed to show up about 30mins before the 5km event started, which gave me plenty of time to go to the toilet (always a pre-race necessity) and a teensy warm-up. Then I chatted to Margaret, Roy, and Geoff before Strewth and JD showed up. Also met Erin, from USA, who is here for 12months with her husband and children. Looking around before the start, noticed that the event also attracted the gun runners such as Sarah Fien, Jackie Fairweather and others that I know of by sight but can't think of their names. Lucky I was planning on doing my tempo run and not racing!

My program called for a run of 11km in total including 2 x 7mins tempo with a 3min jog in between. So my plan was to start at 5min/km for the first 5min; then run 7mins at my tempo pace (around 4.30-4.40min/km); run at 5min/km pace for 3min; then repeat the 7min tempo and finally, finish at 5min/km pace. Then I would continue on and run 6km, to complete a total of 11km. Did it work?

Time / weather - 6pm / warm, sunny, 29*C
Session - Cross country run, Weston Park
Distance - 5km
Time taken - 24.24min
Av pace - 4.44min/km
AHR - 169; MHR - 178
Calories - 270
Place - 80th

1st 5min - ran 1km - av 4.59min/km (spot on)
7min tempo - av pace 4.33min/km (yes!)
3min jog - av pace 5.07min/km (almost spot on)
7min tempo - av pace 4.36min/km (a bit slower but still ok)
2.24min jog - av pace 4.37min/km (too close to the finish and found it hard to slow down!)

The hardest part was slowing down for the jog parts. I felt like telling people who passed me, who I'd passed only seconds before, that no, I hadn't gone out too hard and was now paying the price, but that what I was doing was quite deliberate! It was a comfortable run and I passed quite a few people who would normally outrun me but were obviously suffering in the heat. So it was an interesting race, not the least because I wasn't shattered by the time I had finished........a good thing considering I had a further 6km to run.

I stopped long enough to have a drink and then headed off again, this time along the cycle path which goes through Westbourne Woods, up past the Governor General's house and out to Scrivener Dam. This is a very pleasant run because most of it is run in shade, which was very welcome. Obviously many of the gun runners, who had finished the event ages ago, headed out this way to do their cool down run as I passed quite a few running back the other way. Lots of cyclists went whizzing past as well, most heading home after work.

Session - rest of tempo run (run at easy pace)
Distance - 6km
Time taken - 34.07min
Av pace - 5.38min/km
AHR - 159; MHR - 171
Calories - 305

Next instalment:
Tomorrow - 16km medium long run before work.
Can CJ do it? Can she get up early (ie 5am), eat and then head out the door by 6am?
Watch this space!