Building Slowly

On Friday I had a pretty busy day on the Gold Coast between work during the day, then an evening of fun out with co-workers. In between I had a couple of hours to spare. I brought a book down with the intention of maybe reading a book on the beach, but with a weekend away and the upcoming race, I decided to spend the time going for a run rather than resting up for a weekend out. I stopped at the beautiful Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast and did 7k on the beachside boardwalks and around the little park area & look-out. The trail was uneven and parts were hilly, which was a good test for ankle endurance. It was hard and I even had an ankle roll - but thankfully it was my left ankle so I was up and running by the next step.

A gorgeous day and a gorgeous trail. I shoulda coulda woulda gone harder, but that wasn't my goal of the day - my goal was to up the distance and just finish it.

Total distance: ~7k

Total time: ~45min

Back from a weekend in Melbourne where I ate lots and lots of high quality chocolate (yum!) to a humid Brisbane morning. Everyone was feeling the heat & humidity today as we groaned over the 3 x 2k reps on schedule [with a 1k recovery jog].

The goal time my coach had me down for was laughable given my lack of fitness - 4.48min/km! Considering last Tuesday I was hovering between 5.15-5.30min for 1k reps, I was hoping to go around 5-5.10min/km for this week.

First rep splits: 4.58 / 10.09 >> Goal achieved! Although I slowed down the second half, I was still happy with this overall.

Second rep splits: 5.35 / 10.55 >> Goal not achieved. But at least I did pick it up in the second half of the rep.

Third rep splits: yeah, right. I was dying and my ankle was starting to hurt, so I did stretches instead and tried not to feel too guilty over slacking out of the last rep. Fortunately my fellow runners were very supportive of my decision, if not a little jealous.

It's getting into crunch time leading up to the relay! There's only so much training I'll be able to fit in over the next 7 days and then I need to take a bit of recovery before hitting the relay. My speed is not where I'd hoped/wanted it to be, but it's building slowly, as is my endurance. The true pressure cooker test will be the relay itself.