On March 31, I ran the 7th annual Just a Short Run in North Park. My goals weren’t lofty since I’m more interested in my performance at this year’s Ikea half marathon. I wanted to run at faster than a 10:00 pace and finish without walking at all. I’m pleased to say that I achieved both goals. 🙂 I finished in 2:07:53 (9:45 pace), 429/636 overall and 41/46 males 25-29.

Not all went well, though. At about mile 11, which is where I started walking for a while at the Ikea, I hit a wall. It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other. I dropped from the 9:30-ish pace I’d been running to close to 11:00. I felt there was a possibly I’d pass out – a rather unpleasant feeling. I didn’t start walking, though. In fact, I still managed to tap into reserves to sprint the last 100 meters or so. I was really beat at the end, but within a few minutes felt pretty good, perhaps due to endorphins kicking in. By about an hour after the race, though my feet were killing me. They really hurt like hell, forcing me to walk like a feeble old man. Walking was quite painful for a few days, but thankfully the pain went away. I suspect I had developed peroneal tendonitis as a result of switching insoles.

My goal for this year’s Ikea is to finish with an average pace of 9:30 and not bonk. I paced myself this time using my heart monitor. I maintained an average heart rate of 90% (85% by the Karvonen formula), and until mile 11 that seemed to work out quite well. I’m hoping that with good training my heart rate will drop and my overall fitness will improve sufficiently to make that heart rate correspond to a faster pace.

P.S. I used my iPod. What are you going to do about it? 😛