UFC: Ultimate Fifteen (mile) Circuit

Okay, I admit it. I just finished watching the Ultimate Fighting Championship 62, taped from last night pay-per-view. I was supposed to watch this last night, but I was a superbad date as I fell asleep before the opening credits were finished. It was 10pm, I had a bellyful of rotini primavera and I had 15 miles waiting the next day ... I probably had no fighting chance of staying awake!

So I woke up this morning, not exactly raring to go, but ready. It was very overcast, and humid -- the most humid it's been in weeks, it seems. The rain overnight hadn't helped. And it looked like it would start again soon. Packed two gels, a water, and a bus ticket (always) in the fuel belt, then strapped the Garmin to my wrist and opted to leave the iPod at home today (wouldn't want to get that waterlogged).

I left at 7:30, and ran for 54 minutes, covering 4.5mi before meeting the running group. The group was doing 10K today, so that worked with my plan as it did last week. I did this portion of today's run at a much slower pace, almost a minute per mile slower -- I wasn't fast enough to keep up with the lead pack, but I was a little bit too fast (!) for the back of the pack. No midpaced people today. So I slowed down, because what's the point of running with a group if you run the preset course by yourself?

What this meant was that when I parted ways with the group afterwards, I had lots more energy left for the 4.5mi I needed to finish the task. So, I decided to try out the "virtual partner" function on the Garmin. I set the distance to 5mi. And the time at 12:30/mi, which is probably a little bit slower than I do on average, but something I thought I could hold for the whole distance. I raced the little virtual dude across the beach, then home. I miscalculated the distance home, and had to run a little bit more. I was very happy to see the end of the run. Because the screen flashed "Success!"

And it wasn't so bad to run a little bit extra around my neighborhood. Because I ended up at Tim Hortons. The reward: a medium coffee with milk and a chocolate dipped donut. I don't even feel exhausted.

Total distance today: 15.21mi/24.48K.
Time: 3:17:10.
Calories burned: 1407. So that's a no-guilt donut, thanks.

Weekly tally (for weeks 9, 10): 20.31mi + 27.21mi = 47.52
Training-to-date: 258.97mi/416.77K