We didn´t do a whole lot of walking, but a lot of sitting and just enjoying the scenery. I decided to do a few striders to see how they felt and to see if I could get a good picture.
After this, we headed into old town Quito, a place that we hadn´t yet been, despite been raved about by the locals. Our taxi driver there was kind of a dick and took us to the wrong place and over charged us. Oh well. It was a little overwhelming at first. There were about a million people in these crowded streets. Needless to say, this was a hands in pockets expeditition.
We saw the one really big church that we came to see and then walked around exploring for a bit. Benedicte was seeming a bit uncomfortable with all of the people (ring any bells, Puerto Rican parade?), so we snagged a cab a got out of there.
We grabbed lunch at the Quicentro (yay pizza hut!), since Maria was out voting and told us she couldn´t make lunch today. We grabbed a cab back to the house and I had just enough time to breathe, lace up my Asics Gel-DS and head out the door.
Inspired by Haile´s unbelievable 2:03:59 (see below), I decided to try a bit of quicker running. I was going to jog to the Parque Carolína (about 1.5 miles) slow, and then run around the park speedy speedy (around 4k), and then cooldown back home. I haven´t done any fast running in about a month, so the fact that I´ve had no speedy runs in my legs and the fact that I´m still up pretty high made me a little dubious. I was hoping to run under 15:00 for the 4k which would be right about 6:00 pace.
I went out hard and fast. I flew by groups of slowly meandering Quiteños shirtless and got a lot of wierd looks. The heat really took its toll on me after about a half mile. I ran under a fountain to cool off.
About 10 minutes into it I started to feel the oxygen. I told my body to go but it just wouldn´t. Faster, Faster! but I got nothing. The last few minutes were pretty brutal. I don´t know my splits or anything, but I imagine I was going over 6:00 pace for the last half mile or so.
I ended up coming in around 14:14 (5:43/mile pace), which I was surprised and happy with. I jogged back to the house aroudn 9:00 pace and retired to my shower feeling satisfied. Not too bad for my first real fast running in a while. I think I´ll do the same run next week and see if it gets any better. I don´t think it´s a matter of pacing it´s just a matter of oxygen.
No comments:
Post a Comment