Monday, April 30, 2007

My final long run before the Minnie

The weekend in Calgary was great. My mom arrived in town on Thursday and I am now ready and raring to go down to Orlando. I got my final long run in before the Minnie 15K this past weekend. I was supposed to run 8 miles, but I found a nice route online that was supposed to be 14K and wound around the Glenmore Reservoir. They had so many detours set up due to construction that it lengthened the route to about 10 miles..!! I ran 9, then walked the final 1. The run was great - I felt like I could have kept going and going and going. Here are the good point and bad points about the run:
Good points:
- I like Jelly Belly's Sport Beans. Yummy, and at mile 4 it gave me enough energy to keep going. Plus my stomach liked them too.
- Running around the Glenmore Reservoir is really pretty. You get to run through a forested area, along the water, across a dam, and have great views of the city as well.
- Some folks in Calgary are really nice. Like the fellow who was mowing his lawn and could tell that I was lost when there was a lack of detour signs. He pointed me in the right direction.
- I finished the 9 miles in 1:45:08 and ran consistently even splits.
Bad points:
- It is very difficult to eat said Sport Beans with your mouth closed while you are breathing hard during one of your recovery walk breaks. Attractive...
- It took me 2.5 minutes to eat that pack of Sport Beans. Think I need to improve on that...

All in all, a great run. I'm feeling confident going into the 15K this weekend. I'll try not to push the 5K the day beforehand too hard.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good pre-race tune up. Without the detours, a 15K at Disney will be a piece of cake. OOOOH, cake, that sounds good!

Great information you learned about "sports beans." Many runners "forget" to try different things on their training runs that will help them on Race Day.

Good plan on taking the 5K at an easy pace. Running too hard in the 5K would be like eating a whole bag of chips before going out for a nice dinner....I THINK?!

Can't wait to see how you did!