Enough mushy stuff about being a mommy. There is a local 12 km race this week-end and I am ready to BRING IT! It has taken five days but I have overcome the jet lag (which, as an aside, I finally vanquished using shock therapy this morning and FORCED myself to get out of bed at 5.45 am and hit the road for a run by 6 am, it felt so.... very... awful - my body processed the time as being about 3 am however I could feel the horrible yuckiness leaking out of my muscles kilometer by kilometer and 16 km later I was finally back on good old Italian time). I am feeling fit, strong and kind of cocky actually. I`m not saying I won`t get beat BUT people are going to have to HURT if they want to get by me. Yeah, cocky is something I am still experimenting with, it's not really my natural state.
So how does one race 12 km anyway? In more than 20 years of competitve running, I have never raced 12 km. I figure I have to guess my current 10 km fitness and then run slower by about 2-3 seconds per kilometer. Based on the Mercier Calculator, my 17:55 5 km two weeks ago is worth a 38:06 10 km - that doesn't seem right to me, surely a 17:55 is faster than 38:06? Enter the Macmillan Calculator, which predicts a 37:15 10 km; that seems more accurate to me. Anyone out there have a great formula for converting a 5 km time into a 10 km time? So, to be conservative, I will say I am in 37:30 10 km shape, add 2 seconds per kilometer and plan to run 3:47 per km which means an 18:55 5 km split and a 37:50 10 km split and a total 12 km time of 45:24... I'm very curious to know how close I get!
Speaking of predictions, there's still lots of time to enter your prediction in the Sea Legs Girl Marathon prediction contest by commenting on this post.
Leslie,
ReplyDeleteI don't know anything about race calculators. Though I would be a lot cooler if I did. I just wanted, though, to say that I loved your story about Monsieur Le Dinosaur. I could completely relate. So no need to worry about writing "mushy" mommy stuff.