Thunderbolts

Wow, I wish I could run at the speed that I jumped out of bed this morning - although the speed was due to the 'flight or fight' reaction as an electrical storm was well underway and the thunderbolt that woke me must literally have been overhead - what a noise - plus the lightening was pretty violent too.  

Anyway, it was very early Sunday morning and I had a two hour run scheduled - not ideal in such stormy conditions - although it was still fairly warm outside at around 28 degrees.  I thought I would take my time in the hope the storm would pass, so sat with my iPad checking Facebook and reading the NZ Herald with a large mug of steaming peppermint tea.  The storm did finally pass and I headed out the door at around 7.30am.

I am on the 21st day of the 'Paleo 30 day challenge' and getting used to low carbs / high fat eating and hoping the body is 'fat adapting' so I headed out today without eating breakfast (usually any run over 90 mins I would have eaten first).  I had with me my trusty floe bottle filled with icey electrolyte drink so was well equipped.  I felt like exploring a bit today as 2 hours is the longest I have run whilst living here in tropical Singapore, so I headed off to Mt Faber where I had taken mum and dad last weekend and ran across this bridge and into the bush - it was a lovely start to the run.

I am still using the walk 2 minutes and run 8 minutes technique which seems to work well for me and I will continue this through the marathon - the only issue is the lack of speed....I am only covering about 8 km an hour which is not ideal.

I am always confused when people ask what my training pace is and what my race day pace will be......for me with the marathon distance they are one and the same!  42 Kms is a long way and a lot can happen between the start and the finish - pacing is everything and the long run on Sunday is the opportunity to get the pacing right.  The thing that worries me the most is how long this marathon may take in the heat and humidity but something my mum said yesterday resonated well - she is in London now after her 2 weeks here and she says how good she feels being able to breathe again in the fresh air - she said she had found it really hard to get her breath the whole time she was here....so perhaps I shouldn't be too hard on myself and just use this event as a learning experience in how to finish the 42km event in hot and humid conditions as comfortably as possible.

The good news is I finished my 2 hour run (without having breakfast) very comfortably - I re-filled my floe bottle at the halfway mark as I ran passed a Subway store and stopped briefly to buy some more water, dropping in an additional electrolyte tablet and carried on.  The not so good news was that my Garmin watch indicated I had only covered 15kms - although to be fair the Garmin does take its time picking up the satellite in the mornings so it may have taken a while to get started (that's my story anyway).

I was starting to get pretty hungry and really enjoyed my Paleo breakfast....mince with mushrooms, onions, tomato, fried eggs and roasted purple Kumera - YUM - that was worth waiting for.