Week 6, Day 1

Because I ran that 10k race yesterday, I did a recovery jog today instead of the fartlek run that was on the schedule.

Another beautiful day here! Took the dogs for a walk first. Maggie wanted to go around the Observatory. We did not see any lizards until we were closer to home, fortunately.

Got out for the run at 10 am. Wore my new Nike GPS Sportwatch. Ran around the park. Not surprised to discover that the GPS watch measures my routes shorter than the Nike Sportband/shoepod does. Came out to 3.01, whereas it is usually 3.14 or so with the Sportband. I blame this on the GPS not accurately measuring the distance I travel going up the stairs on the way to Observatory Ave.

Distance was 3.01 miles and time was 34:30 or 11:27 pace. That is a little slower than my newly revised recovery run pace (based on my race time from yesterday). I'm supposed to do them now between 10:34 and 11:20. But it was in the park, and the park is always hard. 34:30 is not a bad time for a loop of the park.

I was glad I didn't wear the watch for the race yesterday, because I am still figuring out how to use it and it would have been a distraction. I just sat down and read the manual off the web site, and I think I pretty much have it down now, but it will be awhile before I don't have to think about which button to push when.

Got about 7 hours of sleep last night. That seems to be the magic number. Plus, I need to wake up without the alarm clock. Today I woke up at 6:30 and I could have stayed in bed a little longer but if I fell back asleep and then the alarm went off, I have learned that I would feel worse.

Forgot to comment on sleep yesterday. Although I did not get much sleep Saturday night, I did wake up before the alarm clock. I had it set for 5 am and I woke up naturally at 4:45, so I got up. Even though it was just 5 1/4 hours of sleep, I felt okay because I did not wake up in the middle of a dream. Important thing to remember when racing---try to wake up naturally, without the alarm. Or set the alarm for a time slightly after the point when you think you will wake up naturally, just in case. Or program your mind to wake yourself up 15 minutes before the alarm goes off.