running with the hitman, well kinda

So if you've missed the hype (right), today was the first ever OC-QC Virtual Synchronized Training Run between me and fellow runner/blogger hitme64. At 1:20 pm today, I laced up my nearly forgotten road running shoes and headed out the door to "meet" him for our training run.

Our training session was quite simple— total distance of 8k (1k warm up walk, 6k run, and a 1k cool down). Since this is a buddy training run, he and I were running at the same time, well except his time was 4:30am, while mine was 1:30pm. His training venue was Quezon City, mine was Orange County, literally continents apart.

I arrived at the Back Bay at 1:25 and waited another 5 minutes. It was a balmy 75 degrees with full sunshine and a nice breeze. At precisely 1:30 (my time), hitme and I started our run (or at least I hoped he did). My route started at the Back Bay interpretive center in the direction of Jamboree, hung a right to get on the Irvine Creek Trail (a bike path really), went under the bridge towards UCI, then turned around at the half-way point to return to the start.

At about 2 miles in, er, I mean 3.2k, I heard a runner's footsteps gaining on me. I picked up my stride but sensing this person was right behind me, I knew that it won't be long before he or she would overtake me. But no runner passed, so I turned around and realized I was alone.

Or was I?

The strange thing was hitme once posted on his blog that because of his pre-dawn track workouts, he'd been spooked by running ghosts. So I thought— has this idea of hitme and I running "together" somehow allowed this spirit to travel here and run with me instead? Hmm... the things you think of when you're running alone.

It's been awhile since I've run this course. I used to do it all the time when I was training for my first marathon over five years ago. It's pretty flat while passing views of the bay, Irvine Creek, the university, and the neighborhoods of vanilla Irvine. The bike path itself is actually nice; it even has a water fountain along the way, just in case. I kinda missed running here and am glad that I chose this route for this momentous event (insert fireworks here). You gotta watch out though to avoid stepping on some horse crap on the equestrian section of the Back Bay Loop.

At the end of my run, my Garmin registered 8.02k in 49:25. I thought "WOW! I'm fast," till I realized that I was in kilometer mode and not miles. Damn!

My average HR was 152bpm and I burned 609 calories. Since this is a training run, I thought I'd post my splits for you number lovers out there.

1K = 9:23
9:21 min. km.

1k to 4k = 16:10
5:23 min. km.

4k to 7k = 15:31
5:10 min. km.

7k to 8k = 8:20
8:15 min. km.
Well, I'd say that I had fun running "with" hitme today. Check out his blog for his training recap. Next time, we'll get Jaymie to join us, though at 4am she'll probably stick to her velveteen treadmill.

Hey, if you'd like to join us on our next training run, the more the merrier. And if you happen to be on a different time zone, even better.