1K time trial

This morning I was up early and pleasantly surprised to find a chill in the air when I stepped out the door. (12C/54F). It felt amazing, but I immediately thought, 'Shoot, now I can't blame the heat on a slow time trial.' ;) I've been feeling sluggish all week and wasn't expecting anything spectacular.

I had plugged some of my recent race results into McMillan to get some predictions:

5K 21:34 ... 3:40.1

10K 43:08 ... 3:31.9

Half Marathon 1:42:22 ... 3:46.0

Marathon 3:37:18 ... 3:58.0

I didn't put a whole lot of weight on those projections since I achieved those times when I was in excellent racing shape; 4 weeks post-marathon I am probably recovered, but definitely not fit. I've been feeling slooooow lately, but I still wanted to see what I could do and give myself a bench mark for comparison later in the season.

Yesterday some of you guessed what my time might be - thanks for your predictions!

Laura - 3:15-3:30

Deb - 3:57

Amanda - 3:28.45

J - 3:49

One of you was exactly right!

I had a lot of "how far is a K anyway? I only know miles!" comments; 1K = 0.621371192 miles. Now you know. :)

I drove to the park for an extended warm-up before heading over to the track to get to work. I encountered these pesky geese along the way and immediately thought of the Seattle girls who are not the biggest fans of our Canadian geese who like to hang out in WA. I only received a few hisses as I stepped gingerly through this danger zone. These birds can be feisty!

Once I made it over to the track, I procrastinated snapped a couple of pictures before starting another warm-up - I ran 5 laps with a moderate sprint for the last 100m of each.

I stopped again to ditch the iPod (so I would hear the beep once the torture time trial was over), sipped some water and jogged slowly to my 'starting line' on the opposite side of the track.

Originally I was unsure whether I should have a running start or not, but decided it would be more authentic to start from a stop. After procrastinating lingering for another few seconds, I eventually willed myself to take a deep breath and his START.

Do you know how long a kilometre is??? (0.621371192 miles) After completing half a lap and knowing I had two full laps to go, I was pretty sure I was going to die. I hated that first full lap and hit a mental block where I felt myself slowing down slightly. I snapped out of it for the final lap, telling myself I only had to suffer for about a minute and a half (which seemed like forever). I pushed as hard as I could after rounding the final bend onto the straightaway. My lungs were screaming and I probably sounded like a tractor; actually, I felt like a bit of a tractor too - rumbling along with anything but grace. It wasn't pretty.

But I finally heard the beep.

3:49.27

It's not where I'd like to be, but about what I expected. It's my fastest ever recorded kilometre and I know there's lots of room for improvement. I will get that down to 3:3X by the end of the season.