Faster

This week's long run was shorter - 20 km. I didn't have any particular pace in mind, just planned to go with how I felt. I'd been a little under the weather the last week, had even skipped one day of running, and still wasn't feeling 100%, so I wasn't expecting much.

I started off at a normal moderate pace, but as my watch displayed the pace for each kilometer, I noticed I was speeding up, although my perceived effort didn't seem any different. By the time I got to the last five kilometers, I was still feeling good and could see I had a chance to beat my best time on this route. That always motivates me to finish strong.

I ended up getting my best times for 1 km, 5 km, 10 km, and 20 km. (Since I've been tracking on Garmin, almost four years.) If I'd realized I was on such a roll I would have kept going for another kilometer and got my best half marathon time as well.

Curiously, my pace kept speeding up all the way to the end. So the fastest, 1, 5, and 10km were all at the very end of the 20 km.

My previous best 5 and 10k times were almost two years ago and I haven't come close since then. I've been wondering if I ever would. I'm running almost twice as much distance per week as I was back then, without the foot and knee problems, which should translate to better performance, but I'm also two years older.

I didn't cut a lot of time off my previous best - 5 seconds off my 5k time, 15 seconds off my 10k time. But the previous run was a total of 12 km on a level, straight out and back paved path, with no people to dodge. Whereas today's was 20 km on my usual mix of winding dirt single track along with paved sections, with about 500 ft of vertical, and the usual obstacle course of Sunday cyclists, dog walkers, and baby pushers. And today's 5 km was after running 15 km. Curiously, my average overall pace for both runs was exactly the same. However, because my heart rate was higher last time it rated that run as "highly impacting", whereas today's it rated as "base maintenance". That seems a little bizarre. Garmin's rating system is more a source of amusement than wisdom.

Last week I speculated I could do better if I tapered and had a cooler day. Purely by accident, I got that today. Since I'd skipped a day my weekly mileage was down a bit, and it was definitely cooler - about 11c when I started and 14c when I finished. It felt a little chilly at first (in shorts and t-shirt) but overall it was probably optimal. Although theoretically I was still recovering from last week's 30 km, that obviously didn't slow me down much.

And yes, I plugged today's 20 km time into the race calculator and it told me I should be able to beat my marathon goal time by 6 minutes - definitely promising. Of course, that's if I can arrange to have another best-in-two-years day!