10km test run

In two weeks I'm running my next 10km race and because of that, I wanted to run a test race today. I have my course along a river which is exactly 10,11km long. And the best thing is that there's barely any traffic and I don't have to cross any intersections with traffic lights so I can concentrate on my running. After a 5min warm-up I picked up the pace a bit and started my 10km run. I got a stitch after a couple of minutes and didn't feel great either. I thought if the stitch won't go away within the next 5min I'll slow down and only do 40min of training, what would have really annoyed me. Fortunately, the stitch went away and I kept going. It was harder than normal though and I struggled to keep up the pace. I don't exactly know why, if it was because I didn't have a propper breakfast (a couple of slices of bread), or because I did my long run the day before yesterday or because yesterday was rest day, or… yeah, it could be anything. I made it to the 5km mark in 24:52, so I was glad to stay under 25min cos I wanted to stay under 50min. Normally when I get to the 5km mark, I'm still quite relaxed and have the feeling that I can speed up a bit in the second half – not today though. I felt tired and couldn't bring my legs to go any faster. I tried some pep-talk, it helped a little bit but not much because I was just too worn out. After about 30min I would have loved to just stop, but I thought I already made it that far and put all that effort into it, I won't just stop now cos otherwise all that would have been for nothing. I don't like break off a training anyway, it always makes me grumpy, but sometimes there's just no other way and it's better if you do and just get over it. But I kept going, breathing heavily and stumbling cos my legs were so dead. However, I made it to the final straight and saw the traffic lights (that's where the finish was), but couldn't go much faster. I wanted to get there before the 49min mark, but the time stopped at 49:03.5. After I got my breath back I was happy with that time, considering the fact that I really did not feel good from the start and still stayed under 50min, it was a good effort and I'm even proud of myself for pushing my body through this whole run.

Today's run: 10,11km in 49:03.5min (12,37 km/h), avg heart rate: 174, max heart rate: 190

In the afternoon we went to the beach and had some ice cream (yuuummy) and in the evening I rode my bike on the wind trainer for a little bit (1 h 15). Nice and easy, I didn't even bother putting my heart rate monitor on because my heart rate would have been way to low and I didn't even want to know how low. But it felt good for my legs and that's the main thing.