Long Weekend, Long(ish) Run

Went for an 8k run yesterday.  Well, it was a run/walk, actually.  Since I’m still trying to “fix” my hip and IT band issues, and since I’ve been sucking wind hard on my runs lately, I decided breaking up my running with some walking intervals was the smart thing to do to keep my legs and lungs happy.  Not to mention the fact that I was visiting my brother in Calgary, which is at an elevation of about 3,500 feet vs. Saskatoon’s elevation of 1,600 feet, so I tend to feel like my lungs are going to jump out of my chest, anyway.

I did 4 min running, 1 min walking intervals.  I followed a trail near my brother’s place and it provided amazing views of the city below.  It passed very close to Canada Olympic Park, which I thought was kind of inspiring.

(Not my pic, by the way.  Nabbed it from a real estate website, Jayman Realty, since I wasn’t carrying my camera with me on my run).

By the end of the 8k, I was pleasantly surprised that my legs still felt pretty good.  My pace was slow, but I’ve been doing a little reading lately, and the general consensus is that long runs should be slow and easy so that you can recovery easily and get in other quality workouts during the week.  There is, of course, more to it than that, and other approaches you can use (see here or here for examples), but now that I have an idea of why the long run should be at a fairly easy pace, I feel better about my turtle pace.

For the first time that I can really remember, I didn’t have stomach troubles on my long run.  I kept my pre-run breakfast simple and low in fibre by grabbing a few handfuls of Life cereal.  Apparently I’m going to have to buy some for at home, or maybe try some other types of low-fibre cereal, because it totally did the trick.  On my next run, I’ll probably have to add some Powerade in later in my run, since I’ll be going longer than 1 hour. I usually use Gatorade, but the Disneyland half will have Powerade on the course, so I’ll be trying it out this summer.

After eating and showering, we headed out to Calaway Park for the afternoon. The kids had a blast, but some clouds rolled in, the temperature started to drop, and it was starting to rain, so we headed home earlier than we had planned.  We got quite a few rides in, plus some cotton candy, so it was a fun afternoon.

On the agenda today: relaxing and watching some hockey.

It’s a long weekend here in Canada, so you might not hear from me again until Tuesday.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! I will be enjoying mine.