Season 3 Premiere

I have not fallen off the edge of the world. I have, in fact, been off-season. Blissful, glorious off-season! For the past two months I have enjoyed partaking in netball, going to the gym with my dad, tobogganing, and a whole heap of other activities that were not running (although running may have been involved).
Reading up on my fellow runners who were still training made me feel guilty. Fortunately, I was able to wash away said guilt with a couple of brownies.
But now training season has begun again - hooray! Time to get off my lazy butt and get out the door. I started pre-season training last week, wherein I did yoga, weights, stretches...anything that would keep me in the nice air con (A/C) and out of the horrific Rocky heat. It hit 37C last week - no way was I enduring an outdoor run!
But Thursday night I caught up with a running friend from my group who was up in Rocky for a few days. Like me, he is partaking in the training camp in 3 weeks time. Unlike me, he has kept fit these past few months (if I were planning to run 100k race through the Blue Mountains in May, I imagine I would be trying to keep fit, too!). His description of the training camp gave me shivers. Three months ago, no problem. Now? ... 8 weeks off can do a lot of damage! As I found out today.

Distance 10.00km
Time: 1.08.00h
Elevation: 80m
Avg pace: 6.48

Yikes! I was hoping to manage at least a 6.30 pace. But man, by km 6 the only thing that kept me going was that I was doing a loop (smart thinking on my behalf!) and wanted to get it done as quickly as possible. Painful! I struggled and struggled. The other smart call I made was to hit the hill at the beginning rather than the end. As a result, I ran up the hill rather than crawled.
One would think I were doing twice that distance with the speed I was going. I was faster than a walk...barely. I had decided to take today easy. My goal was distance & time on feet, not speed. But yeesh! How scary. My knees twinged, my back whined...I can barely manage a 10k right now. Yes, I know I've been in worse condition than this, but at the same time, I've also had more time than 3 weeks to get my butt in gear.
The only good thing about such a slow time is I have LOTS of room for improvement!
Last year, my training goal was twofold: 1) run in 3 half marathons. 2) Get a PB in a half marathon. I happily achieved both. I haven't quite carved out this year's goals yet. Well, I have, but not enough to list them just yet. I think I might wait until after training camp to solidify them. Stay tuned! This is one slow runner who is coming back into training season! YYYYAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!