Adarq.org

london!

yesterday

- run 7.65 km in 40:19
with gf except for about 2.7 km in the middle where she took a break to do some bw strength stuff. pace ~5:30 with her, 4:30 without her.

- stretch

lisbon!

- run ~9.5 km in 51:38
straight downhill, then straight uphill. also i got lost several times. lisbon city planning department is unfamiliar with the concept of a street sign. probably a little longer than 9.5 km but i forgot to sync my watch so the gps took 40 minutes to be ready. 

- stretch

woke up to a gnarly charley horse in my left calf on friday. made my leg sore all day, decided not to run. then yesterday was the wedding, which i was in, so, full day of groomsman responsibilities. today flying to portugal. no complaints about any of it but i'll be glad to be back in islamabad with a predictable schedule.

yeah looks like your shoulders are behind your hands and like you're distributing your weight in the set position almost as if you're expecting to do a pushup. also you take a huge rock back before you push off, maybe because of how you're positioned.

i haven't watched a lot of full basketball games the last two years because the timing sucks so much. but man watching a full 48 of houston offense is just awful. harden is great and all but it seemed like they had like 10 easy layups/dunks and the rest was iso ball or a pass to a covered shooter with 4 seconds left.

it's so weird because mr. seven seconds or less himself is their coach. go figure.

thanks adarq! didn't go quite as well as i'd hoped but i'm so happy right now. just proud of myself for following through under the circumstances.

- warm up slow jog 2.3 km, strides

- race 5k in 20:49 (watch), 20:55 (official)

- cool down slow jog 1 km

- stretch

weather was good: overcast and mid-60s although very humid. it rained all night and stopped just in time for the sign-in period to start. smallish race, i'd guess around 100 or maybe 150 people, and i started right at the front. i went out much too fast, 3:39 for the first kilometer, although the leaders shot out in front and i did not try to keep up. faster race than last year. course was hilly the entire time, very few flat stretches. second km was 4:07, then 4:11, then 4:22 and 4:22. managed a wee little kick for the last 50-75m but i had a headache for the final 1+ km. that was a bit of a drag. the winner finished in 18:24, i think i was fifth or sixth.

disappointed that i didn't go faster but i didn't hold back much. need to figure out what to do to avoid headache because in retrospect my legs had more to give, especially in the last km. what a great learning experience, felt very happy as soon as i'd cooled down and was hurting less.

EDIT: forgot to mention i had diarrhea all day on saturday, and also spent the whole day setting for, being at, and then visiting with people after my brother's memorial service. so that might have been a factor as well.

EDIT 2: added official time. i was sixth of 297 (guess i'm bad at estimating crowd size, lol). also i scrolled right on the split data on garmin connect for the first time. couple points (by km):

• average HR: 156, 171, 171, 180, 184
• average cadence: 176, 175, 176, 175, 174
• average stride length: 1.54, 1.38, 1.35, 1.30, 1.31
• garmin's calorie estimator is inscrutable

- run 5.17 km in 27:17
super relaxed. it's beautiful outside.

- stretch