Running On Empty

I set out Saturday morning with a nice 5km route intending to up my speed slightly to break 30 min.

A Bad Start
I always stride walk for 5 Min's to warm up and as I approached my start point I began to set up a Runkeeper Activity on my phone. I noticed that the GPS kept going in and out but didn't think much of it. I started running and the first voice prompt said zero distance so I stopped and cancelled it. I did this a further 2 times before abandoning the App and relying on my watch and route only.

Running On Empty
As soon as I began running I realised that I felt as if I was running on empty and that moving away from the normal steady pace I have been using I had no concept of current pace. It turns out, when I checked afterwards, that I must have been doing about 12.5kph instead of the 10kph I was trying for; no wonder I was knackered but with no App running I had no feedback on my pace. I've got to sort that out.
My diet over the previous 24hrs had been very poor for reasons I'll skirt around and I think this was the reason for the 'running on empty'.

Defeated
16 minutes into the session, I realised it was stupid to carry on. My heart rate was sky high (low 180's) and I was drained. I decided to push on to 20 Min's and then stop and walk home. An advantage of circular routes with home in the centre as opposed to out and back is that if you take on an injury you can shortcut to home.

Valuable Lessons
I still achieved a 4.13km run so it was in some ways a good session but it was my first time feeling I had to give up. I think the poor diet in the previous 24hrs leading to running on empty was a valuable lesson. Now I know that trying to speed up a bit went very wrong so I need to practise pace change. I should have known I was going too hard by the high heart rate which does seem to be a good indicator of current effort so I can try using that a bit more.


Runkeeper Sorted
My Runkeeper App is now working again after force closing the App and clearing data before restarting and logging in anew. I suspect a new release of either Runkeeper or GPS Status had clashed with the other but all seems well now.

  
Running for St. Ann's Hospice in memory of Margaret Donovan (Mum) and Sheila Waddington.