After yesterday’s easy nine miles it was good to get out there and run a bit of a tempo run today. The weather was a lot cooler (about 58°) and the forecast for light rain in the afternoon was spot on and just in time for my lunchtime run.
You may remember on Saturday I posted about the “Tweet 5k” – an online event to benefit Athletes for the Cure which is a program of the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Well, surprise, surprise, I found out this morning that my 17:39 from the Run for Independence 5k was good enough to win the weekend competition. My prize? A brand new pair of Newton running shoes! Tremendous news!!
(If you know what Twitter is all about and you’re interested in taking part, be sure to visit the tweet5k web site for more details. The event runs through the end of the month and there are still some great prizes to be won. Of course, you’ll also be supporting a great cause too!)
Back to my run. It took a while to pick up a good GPS signal – probably due to the cloud cover and steady rain – but eventually the black progress bar disappeared and I was able to start running. Compared to my perceived pace, the first mile seemed a little slow (7:43) – in fact, now that I look at the Garmin Connect details, the initial GPS signal wasn’t a good one and it has me starting the run in the water behind the house!
The 2nd mile was a 7:08 and by now I’d settled into a great rhythm in my Newton Gravitas which is the slightly heavier training shoe model. Mile 3 and 4 were very even paced at 6:42 and 6:41 and with the rain now lashing down, I decided to speed up a bit more.
Mile 5 felt great with a steady tailwind pushing me along (6:18) but the sixth mile was tougher as I changed direction and ran into the wind (6:22). The Newtons were performing well and I realized it was the first time I’d worn them in the rain. I had wondered how well the four forefoot lugs would grip the road, but to be honest they handled tremendously. No problems whatsoever.
With a couple of miles to go I decided to maintain pace and stay strong until I got back to the house and with a 6:17 and 6:18 last two miles, finished off the run for eight miles at 6:41 pace – not too bad at all for a Monday run. Most enjoyable!