Baseline 5K

So, Friday I ended up taking as a rest day.  I know I've mentioned it a million times, but I really don't like to get up in the morning.  So, I slept in instead.  And Drew and I had dinner plans after work, so I skipped working out then, too.  Which brings me to this morning! 

Drew had left for the gym earlier than me, so I just went and did some running on the treadmill.  I thought I would try to do some other stuff, but when I got to the gym, I wasn't all that into it and wanted to go home rather than hang around the gym all day long.

I decided to run a 5K on the treadmill and just see what my base time would be without any real effort on my part.  Basically, I wanted it to be an "easy" run.  As opposed to whatever my "speedy" time will be for this race in March.  I thought it would be good just to have some sort of baseline when starting out to see what I'm working with. 

I started out running at 5.6 MPH and just kept bumping it up little by little as time went on.  I ended up sprinting to the finish, but that seemed pretty realistic to me.  I finished in 30:49 (or 9:56/mile pace).  I feel good about that.  Especially since I compared this to the last time I ran this 5K course and ran at a 9:48/mile pace.  And it's a fairly hilly 5K course! 

I really think I've got a good start and I can only go down from here.  I'm going to have to start incorporating more speed work into my routine, but I'm okay with that.  I also keep having some calf soreness in my left calf, so I'm really wondering if it's time for a new pair of shoes.  I'm going to give these that I've got now a couple more tries, but it seems rather suspicious to me.

I ended up cooling down and running one more mile around a 10:20 pace before heading home.  And as far as being hardcore?  I weighed myself yesterday and there is no change.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a tiny bit disappointed by that, but I'm just going to keep on going.  No change is better than going in the wrong direction!

Running
Time: 41:09
Distance: 4.10 miles
Pace: 10:02/mile
Calories: 365