Weekly Sweats: a virtual 5k and a virtual high five

In this week's adventures: 19.1 miles of running, one weight workout, a socially distant high five, and my first virtual race.


I'm linking up with the Weekly Run Down, please head over to Kim and Deborah to check it out.

BREAKING FAMILY NEWS: as a follow up to last week's post,  I am pleased to announce that 100% of us are now runners.  Stepson #2 started couch to 5k this week, and he's been finding the workouts pretty easy, so he's working ahead in the program to catch up to his big brother.  Now it is true that the boys' willingness to use the C25K program might have something to do with the fact that anyone who uses the treadmill in our house gets to watch whatever they want on TV while doing so, but heck, that's been my incentive to start many a workout.

Monday: weights followed by 4 easy outdoor miles.  At least that was the plan.  It was one of those days when my legs didn't feel like moving and those miles were anything but easy.  My body was not having it and I had to take a few walk breaks...now let's be clear that real runners walk, but this run was tough on the ego and yes I let one bad run get to me. 

Tuesday: 6 miles and my running mojo was back in force for speed day.  1.5 miles warm up/cool down and then 4 x 800 fast/400 recover.  I negative split my repeats (not planned, it just happened) and was one click faster than last week: 10:24, 10:18, 10:14, and 9:50.

Wednesday: off, though I "commuted" to work with a short outdoor walk to get from the couch to our upstairs home office.

Thursday: 6 miles, and I decided to take it easy and just run instead of trying to add a speed element to the workout.  I only saw one other person outside, another runner.  The first time we looped each other, I took the initiative to socially distance by moving from the sidewalk to the road.  The 2nd time, he moved out into the street and as we passed, we gave each other a socially distant high five.  And it was every bit as good as a non distant high five.

Friday: another rest day to charge my batteries for Saturday's 5k, another "commute" from couch to office.

Saturday: The Rambling Runner Virtual 5k!  My experience has been that when I step onto a race course, some kind of magic happens and I become a faster runner.  So the purpose of these races (apart from virtual being the only option right now) is to see if I can push myself to get anywhere near race speeds on my own.  I said before that I think it's possible to PR the 10k and very likely to PR the half, but not so much for the 5k.  It's the one race that I feel that I've performed at my fullest potential.

One recommendation that Matt made on his podcast was to do the virtual races close to "real" race time, so I made my goal to start the race at 9.  I picked a flat running trail within walking distance of my house and made a leisurely amble down there.  The one curve ball was that we had massive rain the night before, so my trail was pretty waterlogged and as you can see up top, me and my Old Glories got quite the mud bath.

When I got to the trail, I had a moment of nerves (just like a real race!).  I started up music that I knew would get me going and picked an imaginary start line.  I started a slow jog as I approached my official start and fired off the Garmin as I crossed.  I tried to go fast but not too fast and about a quarter mile in felt pretty miserable.  I peeked down at my Garmin and saw a 9:00 pace, yep that would be the reason. I slowed my butt down and settled into a grove.  And before I knew it the race was over and I walked home.

Um so what was my time and where's the picture of my Garmin?  Sorry to be vague, but I need to keep the specifics on the DL for this one because I'm none too comfortable with Strava's privacy settings.  We'll let SmashRun give the deets:

Safe to say that I'm happy with how things turned out and if I can do what I did in a "pretend" 5k, then good things are in store for the 10k and half.  P.S. the highest heart rate ever is fake news, it was the same as my last 5k.

Thoughts:

• Whoa, I need to do more virtual racing.  
• The only thing that I wish I had done differently was to push a bit more in mile 3.  Mentally I kind of lost faith at 2.5 miles in and I didn't quite leave it all on the course.
• Running a virtual race means that you get to be your own Race Director.  Lisa posted that she ran a half on her treadmill yesterday and was thinking of having a beer, and the lightbulb dawned for me.  Races around here usually offer Miller Lite and no offense, but that is not my brew.  I could totally have cracked open a Dead Guy Ale or a Bell's Two Hearted yesterday, and maybe I will after my next virtual.

Race Cancellation Recaps
(P.S. I'm recapping the cancellations for humor...we're serious about the whole shelter in place thing.)

• The 10 Miler in late April has been postponed, new date TBA.  
• The Big City Marathon in mid May offered the choice of virtual or deferring entry until 2021 or 2022.  A sensible person would defer their entry, but I registered so early that I don't have a lot of cash on the line for this one and I like the cause that the race supports, so I'm down for virtual.  And hey-o the dates line up with the Rambling Runner Half so I can double dip.