Four days ago it was the annual running of the Launceston Ten. Not only did I have a bit of quad soreness but at the time of the running I was leading our weekly service at Devonport Presbyterian where I also preached on Jeremiah 36 and the wonderful fact that God has preserved his written word in spite of many attempts to destroy it over the years.
It's been 8 days since I've had a run of any type so considered that today lunchtime would be the day when I did my version of the Launceston Ten, but using the bike track from the swimming pool carpark. My solo course is not as flat as the Launceston course, but that doesn't worry me that much. I made it a bit easier on myself by not running from home, which would have given me a couple of steep hills to run. I hoped that a time of around 65 minutes would be good because I have only been back training for three months after well over a year off.
At one stage I wondered whether is was advisable to run today seeing that the temperature was 10, though it felt like 8 according to the weather bureau. Anyway, I opted to run regardless. I drove down to the carpark and, while my Garmin was finding the satellites, did some warm up stretches, walking and jogging. It was cold - and would feel even colder at the start because it is under the cover of the trees through the Don Reserve.
I set off at a reasonable pace but by the first half kilometre I knew that I was running faster than I had anticipated (though it is down a slope at that point). I make the decision to slow down, finishing the first kilometre in 6 minutes. By the time I turned at the halfway mark only one of the kilometres was over 6.07. The next three were between 6.12 and 6.19, which was pretty pleasing given the fact that I was tiring a bit. I lost it a bit for the 9th kilometre, blowing it out to 6.26 though the last kilometre was surprisingly fast at 6.28, but this included at incline, according to my Garmin, of 13 metres.
In spite of the cold day I was actually get quite hot on the return leg of the run - but then I do tend, even on days like today, to get hot when I run.
I was quite happy with the time of 1.02.16.43 or about 6.14 per kilometre.
In about 2 1/2 weeks I have my version of the Gold Coast Half Marathon to run, so I had put in some kilometres early next week before I begin to slow it down for my big day. I'll be more than happy to run that at around 6.45 per kilometre - but only time will tell.
