Day 37 – My first 5km

Thursday 23 October 2008

Was away all day in the capital city, Tirana, and that usually means that i am tired when i come home. However, I knew that if I got the chance I wanted to get out and run.
I wanted more than anything to try 5 km…

I have realised a couple of things.
1) the calories burned are the same no matter how fast you run, so there is no point in always looking for a new record.
2) I need to slowly increase the distance without increasing the pace. I can work on the pace when my body is used to running longer distances.

So, I decided on a new route and headed out at 5pm for a 5km.
Unfortunately it took around 15 minutes for the Garmin 305 to link up with the satellite and just as i was ready to run, I realised that I did not have on the heart monitor.

I don’t know if that made me more aggressive…but I had no negative thoughts the whole run.
I ran at “talking pace’ ( that is a pace that you could easily communicate with someone else running with you) and headed off.

This was by far the best and easiest run I have done.
My legs felt good, the pace was good, no stitch, no negative thoughts, no desire to drink water, no lack of energy, no cramps or pains….smooth running all the way.

I finished 3.21 miles which is a little over 5km in 30 minutes 27 seconds.
That is not very fast , but I am really , really pleased with myself and very encouraged at the progress.

Tonight, I had on my new climalite Adidas long sleeve shirt.
It was soaking but I think it really helped me.
My recovery time was remarkably quick and I was not sweating half as much as usual.

Weigh – in should have been yesterday, but the scales are not in the house, so I will weigh in when we get them back.