Week 13 Wrapup

This week was 2 laps of 14 minutes a piece, separated by 1 minute of walking. Everything went fine. Barring some unforeseen difficulty, next week I will finally be able to run 30 minutes uninterrupted.

I've made a couple of short term goals for after that. Before I give up on running, I'd like to be able to have something to show for my efforts, so I've resolved to run a 5k in less than half an hour, and a 10k in less than an hour. I ran a 5k and a 10k when I last ran a few years ago. I can't remember the times, but I think the 5k was around 33:00 and the 10k was around 1:10 (edit: actual 2001 10k results 1:09:38). Those aren't good times. 30:00 and 1:00:00 aren't good times either, like they won't win any medals. But, those times are probably better than those likely to be achieved by the rube who hasn't trained but is in okay shape and feels like a race would be fun. That's all I can hope for: feeling slightly superior to a small segment of the race entrants.

To achieve this goal, I have to pick a couple of races, and make sure I can work up to being able to finish 10k (6.2 miles) in a pace of less than about 9:40 per mile. The 5k should be easy, as I'll be running almost 5k next week, and I had one day this week where I finished both laps in under a 10:00/mile pace. A couple of more weeks to speed it up should be enough to beat the 5k. The 10k will be a little harder, because as the math-inclined among you have already noticed, it's twice as long. I figure it'll be at least another 6 weeks before I can get to that.

Finding a race to run is a bit of a challenge as well. I'm assuming I'd be ready for a 10k in the end of March or beginning of April. However, I discovered that there are not a lot of races scheduled in Arizona between April and October for some reason. There are a couple of 10k races up in the mountains, but one of them's too far, and the other one literally runs straight up the mountain. There's one in Phoenix April 12th that I'd probably have to do, and a slightly hilly one in Tucson on May 4th I could use as a backup if I fail the Phoenix one.

If anyone's interested in the output of my Forerunner, I've been meaning to attach an example of what kinds of things it does. Here's a screenshot of the totals screen for Friday's run:



It breaks the run down by lap (including 1/2 mile warmup run to the park, stretching, the actual scheduled run, and the walk home), as well as showing total time, pace, calories, etc.

I've also attached the .kmz file that it exports to show in Google Earth. This part's pretty cool to see the run overlaid on the aerial photography. Every point on the map also shows the elapsed lap time, speed, pace, elevation, and such for that point if you click on it.

Also attached is the actual .tcx file for opening in Garmin Training Center if anyone's so inclined.