Rollercoaster 10K

Or maybe I should call this the 'inadvertent interval' run instead? :)

The good stuff first:

- I ran a 10K - woo hoo! I will be happier when I start running in the double digits a little more often than what I am doing now, but until then, this will do. :)

- It didn't rain on me and the path was well salted by the city so my concern about potential ice was alleviated.

- The dogs were great; they were very serious about running today. When I stopped to walk, they were like horses chomping at the bit, which was good, because my walking intervals were kept very short as a result. I'm finding that my first km is now faster than my second km just because they are excited and anxious to start running - it takes them a km distance to settle into pace. :)

The odd stuff:

- I have been concentrating on my breathing, incorporating the diaphragm breathing learned from yoga and pilates, and as per the discussion in Chi Running/Walking. It really works! I'm enjoying it, too. However, it just wasn't easy to incorporate today for some reason, probably because of what I am about to write next ...

- My pace was all over the map. I acknowledge that I wrote on this blog recently that I was not going to focus on speed so much, and this still is my true intention. However, I couldn't help, but notice last week that I was hitting paces much faster than at the peak of my training program last fall!?! At first I thought it was a fluke, but after tracking it on a few subsequent runs, I'm seeing it more consistently. Huh! Maybe this focus on posture and breathing is already working ... or maybe I am too distracted paying attention to my posture and breathing that I don't realize I am running faster (Angus is at his peak form in the winter so I can also attribute the faster pace to his happier running). Just something I am noticing and making note of ...