Time Trial . . .

. . . or as Roberta put it: a long continuous run. I had hoped to start the run a bit early, but there was a group start at 6. I had arrived before 5:30 and saw almost no cars, so I thought to myself, "Self, you probably should have checked the google map with the location." But alas, I was at the right spot. Things weren't looking too good when I opened the door to go to the car and found out how windy it was. I was freezing when I put my shoes on. The other not-so-good thing was that when I turned Garmin on, it said, "Low Battery." I was hoping it would last long enough for today's run. It didn't. It didn't even make half the warm up. I had to use my regular watch.

So, I did about a 1.4 mile warm up in about 15 minutes. It was really windy then--I almost lost my hat but caught it just in time. By the time I turned around, my hands weren't cold any more. Then there were some strides. When we finally did the group start, I waited to go at the very end. I was kinda hoping Kathryn would have been with me, but she didn't get to the start soon enough. I let everyone go ahead of me. By a quarter mile, I was starting to pass some people. By Mile 2, there were only 2 KWers that I could see ahead of me. I managed to pass one, only to have her pass me at Mile 2.5. When I finished my 3 miles, I immediately stopped, but I walked about a quarter mile to get my HR down before jogging for the rest of the 8 minute cool-down. I suspect it was pretty high for most of the last mile. It was a terrible last mile--I had to really slow down to catch my breath. And of course, since I got so overheated, I started sneezing during core and haven't stopped since. Oh, and I'm wheezing now too. Too bad I don't have an inhaler any more since it's probably a touch of exercise-induced asthma (which I haven't had in a long time, but tends to flare more when it's cold).

Ok, so here are the splits:
9:35.75 9:35.75
9:31.43 19:07:18
9:48.52 28:55.70

I wasn't too happy with the first too splits, but I could have lived with them. The third was terrible! I'm wondering if I had run the second mile a few seconds slower if I'd have done better overall. But, I guess I'm fairly pleased since my "rival" did a 9:17 for the first mile, but finished the 3 miles in 30:45. Her goal was under 30. Mine was under 28. It'll be interesting to see how we both improve since she's piling on the running milage and I'm trying to do more cross training. (It also helps that she's about 20-30 pounds lighter than I am, so if I can drop some weight, I'll gain some advantage). Kathryn also mentioned she was chasing me the whole time and couldn't get me, so that's good. Nevermind the fact that she's about 14 years older than I am.

We finished with 5 minutes of core.

Today is Lunar New Year's Eve, so it's off to mom's for "Chinese style Tur-ducken"--well it's more like a boneless stuffed duck.

I'm going to have to get my act together so I can add the graphics from my toys . . . if I can get them working again.