Day 125 - June 1st - 10K with Cruise Control

Today was the day for the BYU Management Society Fun Run 10k. It was actually a 5K, 10K or 1/2 Marathon depending on how far you went out before you came back on the Centennial Trail by Mirabeau Park in Spokane.

I had not been feeling well with diarhea the days before but thought why not. I may as well figure out where I am at.

I had been thinking for sometime that someone would have made some app on the iPhone to match music with your pace and I found one during the week that is call Cruise Control. To check out Cruise Control click here.

Cruise Control uses your music to control your running in four different ways.

1) Free Run - Just go for a run and the rhythm of the music will adjust to match your stride. Automatically.

2) Pace - Pick a target speed and go! As long as you match your steps to the rhythm of the music, the music will get you to your target speed and keep your there.

3) Heart Rate -Pick a target heart rate and go! As long as you match your steps to the rhythm of the music, the music will drive you to your heart rate goal.

4) Cadence -Special order for the 90 spm junkies! Pick a target stride rate and Cruise Control will adjust all of your songs to play at the same tempo.   

I thought it would be fun to set the Pace to 8:30 per mile and see what happened. I was enjoying the music on the 10K but thought about 15 minutes into the race it was quite slow relaxing music. I looked at my screen and saw 14 assuming I had run 14 minutes but a little later I saw 14 and realized the music was pacing me at 14 min miles.  I quickly changed that back to 8:30. It is quite sensitive and I believe that I accidentally adjusted the pace downward. Anyway a Beatles song came on and I passed some people.

At the half way mark I figured I had been running 8:30 miles as expected and stopped for 30 seconds taking a drink of water. So far , so good. On the way back I could see that I was fading fast. By the 4.5 mile mark I had to stop and take another drink and 45 second rest. At the 5.5 mile mark I was toasted and stopped another 30 seconds so all in all there was 1:45 seconds of rest time and that was my undoing. I finished in 53:54 which is an average pace of about 9 minutes miles. Perhaps without diarrhea and having to rest I would have made it in 51 minutes which was my target at an 8:30 mile pace.

I was the oldest runner that day and got a Subway card for the race, but next time I want to use Cruise Control smarter and be wiser and stronger and meet my target.