32 today ... 32 today ...

No, it's not my birthday, and - unfortunately - I am several years the wrong side of 32 (crikey, where did they all go???). Rather, 32 is the number of k's I ran today.

After how I have felt this week (and still feel) I was not altogether sure that I'd do this run; but I headed out the door leaving my mobile phone at home ensuring I'd have no option but to run all the way home.

The course I ran was a familiar one from home down South Rd to the beach then along the path through Brighton, Elwood and St. Kilda to the u-turn at Middle Park (16km). Today I was blessed with running into a mongrel North-Westerly headwind all the way up the beach which was no fun. It also had the effect of sapping my strength for the return leg when I needed it.

The target pace for today was 5.06 min/km and as is obvious from the splits I ran on target for the first half into the wind (great stuff!) and picked it up early on the way back, maintaining a 30-40sec buffer to target all the way till I began the journey up South Road. (This rolling uphill stretch is fast becoming my nemesis on long runs.)

Unfortunately I "ran" 6.04min/km's along here and so finished about 5min behind target time. The reality of this is that it is still much faster than I have previously run these kind of training runs. Plus, I have run 32k with 10 training weeks still to come (incl. another 3x32k runs) so I should only get better.

I had a Power Gel at 13km (yummy Chocolate) and again at 24.5km (god-awful coffee latte or something). I am sure these made a difference as I certainly did not suffer from hunger knock. My legs held out generally well, especially pleased with right hamstring which was no real issue at all.

Overall, very happy with this result (even if the last 5k was a bit ordinary!)

Splits
1-6km 29.53min (4.58/9.51/14.44/-/24.50/29.53)
7-12km 31.08min (34.57/40.07/45.24/50.40/55.51/61.01)
13-16km 20.37min (66.20/71.24/76.29/81.38)
17-20km 19.50min (86.34/91.28/96.20/101.28)
21-26km 30.39min (106.29/111.31/116.41/121.51/126.59/132.07)
27-32km 36.24min (137.52/143.38/149.46/155.59/161.47/168.31)