I decided to mix it up today and run outdoors instead of doing the treadmill, which is what I usually do on weekdays. I had a short block of time right after I dropped Oleg off at preschool and before I had to pick Max up at the bus stop and decided to take advantage of it.

Although the weather really never warmed up for my run, it was still a good run, mostly because I decided to go pretty hard and prove to myself that my goal race pace really is possible. My goal, if I can make it happen, is to complete the 10k in under an hour. I would be pretty happy with that kind of performance at this point.

Distance : 4.42mi, time: 42:56, pace: 9:43min/mi, speed: 6.18mi/h.
http://mapmyrun.com/workout/410592793

Basically if I could hold that pace for the whole 6.2 miles I would finish in 59 minutes. The problem is that there is always a pileup at the start so that slows things down. On the other hand the course is flat so I may be able to make up time elsewhere. We’ll see.

Anyway, overall the run was good – my shoulder/back/ribs still hurt though. They stopped hurting about a half mile into the run, but started up again after I stopped. Wonder what I did? Stuff like this happens to me all the time – I end up with random bruises all over and no idea how I got them, and weird aches and pains crop up for no good reason.

Part of it is that I am clumsy – for instance on Monday I tripped over the vacuum cleaner because I was not looking where I was going and ended up with a huge purple bruise on my knee. But the other part is that I am getting older, and as you get older, stuff seems to hurt more and it takes longer to recover.

Not gonna complain though, because getting older beats the alternative.