Runkeeper fitness goals

A new feature added not too long ago by Runkeeper is setting fitness goals. You can set distance goals, a goal for a race or a weight goal. Your progess gets posted in a graph on your profile.
It’s a pretty nice feature. So far I have two goals: drop 5 kg by September 1 (4 kg now) and run a total of 800 km between now and the end of the year (which I just set today). Will be interesting tracking the progress of that goal.
Really enjoying using Runkeeper. Being the number junkie that I am, I think it’s another little thing that’s made my return to running more interesting.

Running craves

I kind of guilted myself into running this morning.
It’s not that I felt like I had to go run. More like I wanted to run, started thinking I didn’t have time and then decided “Ah, what the heck”.
I think I’ve reached that point (again).
Easy 5k pace has gone down to around 5:45/km now and comfortable pace is still around 5:30/km.
Nice cool run this morning. Enjoying it while I can. Although the last couple of days have been unseasonably cool for this time of year, the hot is coming and soon my morning runs will be in 25-30°C weather, which I’m not really looking forward to.
According to Runkeeper, I’ve accumulated 306.1 running kilometers, 41.1 walking kilometers (most of that at the beginning) and burned 29694 calories since I started using it in October last year. My next run will put me over 30k calories burned.
I’ve gone from being able to just manage a 2.5 km jog before having to stop to 10 km in just over an hour in 7 months with what essentially amounted to a 1 month break in between. Total monthly distance has been increasing pretty steadily and this month I should be able to crack 100 km. Pretty pleased with that.

27:33

That’s what the clock read when I crossed the i5k finish line. Much better than I felt and faster than I expected. Don’t know what the official time is yet. Will look that up later.
Got rained on for the start of the race. Had a hard time controlling my pace for the first kilometer or so with all the people running up behind me. The last kilometer was pretty rough and there wasn’t much left for a finishing kick. Rounding the final corner and seeing 27 minutes on the clock spurred me on though.
Pretty pleased with my time. It was a good run, aside from the rain.
Update: Official results are posted and put my official time at 27:33, 240 out of 663 participants.

Sub-55 10k?

Yeah, I think I could do one pretty easily.
I’ve actually never done any runs that came close to the 10k distance, even way back during my running heyday. Even back then most of my routes were in the 5-7 km range. I’ve always considered myself a middle distance runner (1500m to 5km) and never tested myself at the longer distances.
Went out for a long run this morning, 9.4 km in just under 57 minutes. I started off only planning on doing my 7 km route, but when I got to the end I was still feeling pretty good so I decided to add on the 2.5 km out and back to the main road. Managed to maintain a pretty stead pace around 6 minutes/km, but it didn’t feel like I was going that fast.
It will probably be a few more months before I start running this far on a regular basis. With summer coming, possibly not until cooler weather returns in the fall.