It was a pretty good running/fitness weekend, but of course Sunday had the nicest weather and was also my strength training day so I didn't get to run in the sunshine.
On Friday evening Joe and I did the Rock n' Roll Las Vegas Kick-off Weekend Virtual 5k. We decided to hit up Tower Grove Park, one of many city parks with a nice perimeter trail and pretty scenery (think fountains, lakes, gardens and turn-of-the 20th century pavilions). I was excited to do the Virtual 5k as it was my first "virtual race" but I felt like things were working against me from the very beginning. First I was wearing some of my "bottom of the barrel shorts". We had a back-up in our drain in the laundry room, which prevented us from doing a normal laundry cycle and really limited my gear options. I felt like I was tugging at them the entire time.
Secondly, I managed to get a rock in my shoe in the first 1/2 mile which required stopping and starting...annoying. Lastly I forgot to take my phone out of its case before putting it in my armband and by the time I realized it after the warm-up walking, I was already far away from the car so decided to just shove it in there...which made it stick out of the top of the armband and therefore it kept falling forward. So...this annoying combination lead me to an average pace of 10:45 which did not make me happy.
But not every run can be a great one and at least I did the 3.1!
Saturday was SUPPOSED to be nice, sunny around 65 for a daytime high and around 50 at 8:00 AM when I typically do my weekend run. Not so much. I went to my Weight Watchers meeting at 6:30 and there was frost on the car. I foolishly told myself it would still get to 50 by run time.
It was 31 at run time, which pretty steady winds out of the North. I've run in colder (if you want to run outside in the St. Louis winters you need to be ok with below-20 temps) but as I was anticipating sunny and 50 it just felt cold and damp and yuck. I felt like I still had a good run though and did 6 miles with an average pace of 10:09, which I was happy about. However 10:00 is what I anticipate myself running as race pace, however I've been hitting it at most of my training runs because I have it stuck in my head for some reason.
After I returned from the run Coach Charlie decided he had to get right up in my face and help me stretch...
Question to those more experienced: do you think this means I need to speed up my race pace or slow down my training runs?
This coming Sunday is the Go! St. Louis Marathon weekend, and I'll be participating in the marathon relay as part of a 4 person team. I'm really excited to participate in this event for the first time and I really like the team aspect of it...we'll see how it goes.
How was your weekend, did you race?
When do you decide to take your pace up a notch?
To slow the training or pick up the race pace...what do you think?
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