Denouement

This is the first 10k Paul has done in Hong Kong.  We had the boys come to watch.  The race was quite a festive atmosphere.  A soda drinking party area, cotton candy, kettle corn, a marching band, a rock band.  Unfortunately it was hot and humid.  28-29C and 85% humidity.

I did a 5k warm up, did a couple of strides and some stretching.  Ali Chow was going to  race, but she wasn't feeling well and she decided to not race.  I didn't see Yiu Kit Ching until 10 minutes before the race, but the only HKer who could beat me was indeed running the race.  Curtis didn't want to race so decided he would pace me.  I wanted 38:00, which was probably pretty agressive for the weather in retrospect.  That is 3:48/k pace.  Here are my splits: 

k	Pace/split	Comments
1	3:41	A small up then downhill, went out a bit fast, in the lead
2	3:44	Slowed down a bit to try to be controlled
3	3:47	Still feeling decent, still in the lead
4	3:49	Curtis decided to bail at the beginning of this k, Kit Ching passed me right before the 4k mark, and she looks strong and I am feeling cooked already
5	3:59	I dropped my gu in the beginning of this k, and am falling back from Yiu Kit Ching, please 10k angel help me!
6	4:00	The rest of this race is basically me trying to keep a decent pace, trying half heartedly to keep Yiu Kit Ching in striking distance unsuccessfully
7	4:01	I tell myself if I can do a 3:50 for this k I might be able to reel YKC in, but I couldn't keep it up!  When we are in the sun it is so sapping
8
9	8:05 for the last 2k	the 9th k is net up
10	1:50 for the first 500m, then 1:46 for the last 500m (3:37 total)	the 10th k is net down but has a down then up, then on the track

 Yiu Kit Ching beat me by 30 seconds.   The conditions were tougher than I expected.  I have let Yiu Kit Ching go out in front of me and then fail to reel her in, and I have now gone out too fast and had her reel me in.  I guess it works both ways (for her--ha!).  I did win $2000hkd in sports store gift certificates, and it was a good workout.  I look forward to winter!

AM: 90 min medium long run, 4:41/k ave pace.  Surprised I was able to go that fast.

PM: it started to rain at 12:30 in the middle of the day, and I was supposed to do a second run so I changed my clothes and ran in the rain. 8.18k at 4:47/k ave

Also a run with the kids in the evening during a downpour!  It was our FHE activity, and we played some basketball.  They are becoming stronger runners.

Also core workout.  Wow, that's enough for one day!  Also I quit sugar until Halloween effective today. 

AM: ran 4 miles on the TM

PT for my back midday

PM: workout with Ali at HKSI.  She has some pain in her leg and was not sure she could do a workout, so we did 800m at a reasonable pace.  Goal was 6-8 800s at 86/lap pace, and launching off every 5 minutes. 4.73k warm up.

1	2:51 (87, 84)	2:09 rest
2	2:51	2:09
3	2:50	2:20
4	2:50	2:13
5	2:50	2:25
6	2:47	2:16
7	2:46	2:17
8	2:41

 9.25 k long cool down  

Ran 11k easy, then did 8 x 20 sec strides with 1 min jog rest between.

Core workout in the PM 

Met Ali in the morning.  She is a bit injured, so we changed our workout from 20 min easy - 20 min tempo - 20 min easy run to a 2 x 20 min tempo on the track (7 min rest between) because she and her therapist thinks the leg feels better when running faster?  So I did my 20 min warm up still, then met Ali at the track.  She thought 92-95/lap was the target, I thought 92 should be the target, so I led but couldn't quite do the 92 minutes--I was still waking up!  I took my splits mostly on the 800m:  3:09, 3:06, 3:05, 6:09 for 4 laps, 3:02, 1:29 for the 13th lap. 20:02 for 13 laps. Then my rest was 7:18 (she must have been about 18 seconds behind) then I decided just to stick with Ali since I was only supposed to do a 20 min tempo and it would be more helpful to her.  So I told her that she was going to lead.  She said she was going fo 95/96 per lap and that is exactly what she did.  800m splits were: 3:11, 3:10, 3:10, 3:11, 3:10, 3:11, then a 1:38 last lap, not sure why the last lap was slower. 20:32 for 13 laps this time.  This felt like marathon pace at first, but got a little harder the last mile, so I am sure it is a bit faster than my current marathon pace.

PM: 5 mile easy run on the TM, a bit faster than 8 min/mile pace 

Ran to Kowloon Tsai slowly.  After 6.7k did 6 x 100m strides on the track and some exercises and stretches, then ran home.

Almost 26k in 4:40 ave pace.  My coach said to go long, and not hard, to slog it even, but I met Curtis at Sunny Bay, and there is only so much I can slog it when running with a faster guy.