The hotel is right on top of Stanley Park, so it's the obviously place to run - I've run along the sea wall several times, but usually got for a few km, then turn around and head back. I've never done the entire wall around the park other than on a bike! Given I had some extra time this morning I set my Nike+ workout for a 5k, which is quite a bit longer than my gradual runs I've been doing recently, but I was interested to see how things were working out with the extra short runs and the digestion issues I'd been having on longer runs. I knew the entire wall was around 10k, so I figured I'd run the first half then enjoy the view walking the final 5k.
Around 3k in I knew I wasn't going to run 5k this morning - I felt great, no issues, great views, fresh salty sea air, I decided right then that I was going to go further than the 5k - in fact, it was time for a bit of redemption - this morning was a 10k day. The other thing that was different this morning, was I forgot to put my HR monitor watch on as I left the hotel - so no clue where my HR was at today and I had to pay a bit more attention to how I actually felt rather than just looking at my wrist to see what it was telling me. I got to 5k really easily, and just kept on going - none of the 5k issues I'd seen the Sporting Life 10k. It wasn't until 7k rolled around that the digestion kicked in, but no where near as bad as I've had in the past - none of the entire abdomen cramping up, just simply needed to stop, and as if it was perfectly timed, there was an open, clean, flushing public loo right at the 7k mark. So with that out of the way, on with the remaining 3k - still no issues, no cramping, just a nice easy run all the way to the 10k mark. And what do ya know, I got it done in 1hr 6 minutes - which is a good 12 minutes taken off the Sporting Life 10k from a few weeks ago - much closer to where I expected my 10k time to be - with a head wind off the water no less!
So it's working then - all these short runs building up and getting my body used to all the shaking around. My next few races now are all triathlons, the longest of which will be the Olympic distance in September - I was getting a bit concerned about the runs in the races given the issues I'd been having, but knowing that even after just a few weeks of working on it I've managed to add a couple km before my body cries out at me is certainly good news.
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