![\"Jackrabbit](\"http:\/\/images.clipartpanda.com\/jackrabbit-clip-art-0511-0908-1218-0711_Rabbit_Jogging_clipart_image.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWith Around the Bay training finished I am moving on to my next challenge, pacing the 5 and 1\/2\u00a0 hour marathon group for Ottawa Race Weekend. \u00a0I took a week off after ATB, only logging 20 relaxing kms for the week. That was enough to make me feel ready to get back to higher mileage and I was very pleased with a\u00a0total of 64 km for the week of April 11.<\/p>\n
My plan for these last weeks before the marathon is straightforward; train during the week at my regular paces and try to nail the bunny pace during my long runs. The latter, however, is more challenging than you might think. I set out last Friday for my first attempt at a long run at the correct pace. I found it incredibly difficult to adjust my pace and try to keep it steady. Add in the fact that I have to do 10 & 1’s, which I’m not used to, and I will admit panic started to set in. I struggled to adjust my gait and my muscles were hurting in places that don’t normally bother me. I started to think I had made a mistake in signing up for pacing duties. What the heck was I thinking choosing the marathon distance as my first bunny job?<\/p>\n
But around 15k I started to get a bit of a rhythm. The walking breaks started to feel more natural. Unlike most of my runs I wasn’t out of breath and I’m quite sure my heart rate stayed very low. I started to enjoy the beautiful summer-like evening and wandered aimlessly throughout Kanata. My original plan was to run 25k but it was so nice out that I continued on until 32 km were done. \u00a0Remarkably I felt as though I could go even farther – what a wonderful feeling! \u00a0The first half seemed a challenge, but the second half of the run felt\u00a0like a gift. \u00a0I thought running for such a long time (4 hours!) would be boring on my own. \u00a0Instead it was uplifting. \u00a0After a long winter – actually not as long as it could have been, but it felt like it lasted forever – it was so nice to enjoy a beautiful evening. \u00a0In the winter I often head out and\u00a0complete a training run without\u00a0seeing another runner or walker, but on this run everyone was outside, and I swear I was feeding off their energy. \u00a0During parts of the run I imagined doing the same thing but with the amazing Ottawa spectators cheering on my group of runners. \u00a0I am now so excited for race day!<\/p>\n
Tomorrow will be another long run, I’m not entirely sure how far I will go. \u00a0I am loosely following a plan right now but\u00a0training for ATB put me a little ahead on long runs, giving me a some\u00a0freedom in my distance choices. \u00a0I already have a 30k and a 32k under my belt with 5 weeks to go, so I am feeling confident that my training will carry me through the 42.2. \u00a0Here’s hoping tomorrow’s run maintains the confidence I am feeling now!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Follow me on Twitter @AverageRunnerK<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With Around the Bay training finished I am moving on to my next challenge, pacing the 5 and 1\/2\u00a0 hour marathon group for Ottawa Race Weekend. \u00a0I took a week off after ATB, only logging 20 relaxing kms for the week. That was enough to make me feel ready to get back to higher mileage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-running"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3amQ2-x1","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2047"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2052,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047\/revisions\/2052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}