Day 36. Double commute. Double stuffed.

Today it took me just over an hour to run in to work. It took Rahul 55 minutes to drive. He lives just over 2km closer to work than I do, so on the numbers it turns out that running was faster than driving today. That's one small win for the runners :) Going home would be a different story but I'm still gonna soak this one up...

It was drizzling this morning and a touch chilly compared to the last few days. Perfect running weather. I love getting out there in the rain, it feels brilliant for some reason that I can't or don't want to try to explain.

Today there was no knee pain (I think the barefooting is reducing the impact enough to keep my bad knee totally pain free), the adductors are starting to feel a bit freer, but I was still damn tired. So I took it easy to start and by about the 35 minute mark I finally felt free of the tiredness and soreness.

I have noticed that on these long "tempo" runs I tend to hover around the 140-155bpm heart rate, and there is a slight feeling of lethargy. At the 10km mark there is a fairly steep hill I need to climb, and going up this gets the heart going, and immediately afterwards it feels like I've shaken off the cobwebs. My speed seems to improve at the same heart rate, and although I do start to feel a little tired towards the end, that's hardly unexpected after being out on the road for quite a while.

I reckon I might try a strategy of kicking it up a notch at about the 2 or 3km mark into a long run to see if it achieves the same effect. It's discovering the little things like this that I love about running every day. It gives me the freedom to experiment and pay attention to the details.

The next commute run should break the 1 hour mark, although I did stop the watch at every red light, which I seemed to get every single one of this morning, and that would have added a minute or two overall.

Run Summary
Distance : 13.41km
Time : 1:00:38
Elevation : +57.4 / -85.9

Click here to view run profile

I then went and ran home after work. Jeez I was knackered at the end :) There was just nothing left in the legs. I wouldn't have blown out a candle but I also wouldn't have outrun a 3 toed sloth. Still, it was worth it to see what it feels like to run when you're operating on low muscle / liver glycogen levels and getting your energy almost exclusively from fat. Although you feel like you're running through mud, it's not as slow as it feels even though your speed does drop off.

Nice easy run tomorrow :)

Run Summary

Distance : 11.12km*

Time : 52:24

Elevation : +90.7 / -68.9

Click here to view run profile

* I had a five minute break and then ran a further 1.75km but that's not listed here.