October 2011 – Not a Jogger

Cutting Down

It’s been a low-key weekend of running. I ran home from work on Friday night, did nothing on Saturday, then went out for a quick circuit of Crouch End this morning.

This would all be great, indeed was great, but my eating habits have not adjusted to a lower mileage. A mid-morning croissant here, an afternoon cake there. My jeans are noticeably tighter. I keep waiting for my brain to tell my stomach it needs less energy but I think it must be too busy digesting the Welsh Rarebit I made for lunch.

I’m so tired at the moment there’s no way I’m increasing the mileage so there’s only one thing for it. The jeans have got to go.

21st Century Schizoid Woman

This morning’s was a run of two halves.

6.15am – 6.35am: I bounded over puddles and dodged pavement cyclists, laughing as a wet branch hit me full in the face. My music was loud and electronic, there were even bongos. I dashed up the stems of the Emirates stadium like a premiership side on a winning streak.

6.35am – 6.55am: I pounded slowly across the stadium’s uneven concrete surround, swearing as the water from hidden puddles filled my trainers and slopped up the backs of my legs. My music was quiet and sad, at one point there was total silence but for the sound of breathing. Not mine. I inched home like a premiership side that knows its glory days are behind it, but just has to keep struggling on in the hope that the old formula will come good once again.

Ironic Woman

On Sunday evening, when I decided to stop the training plan and postpone my race, I was feeling good. I was making tough choices for the right reasons. What a grown-up I was being, how sensible and measured. How, dare I say, smug.

Last night I ran home from work. I mean, RAN home from work. Like a bullet from a gun. Like a rat from a trap. Like a person who could run a really fast 10k time.

Hmm.

Weekly Round-Up, Race Climb Down

My training has been going well, though last week I only managed four sessions, and I was looking forward to trying for a sub-43 minute 10k on 6th November. Last night, however, I decided to postpone this world record* attempt until 2012.

Nothing dramatic, I’ve just recently started a course of medical treatment which is leaving me really tired. I’m perfectly able to run, but running at full pelt and high mileage seems foolish and probably counter-productive. It’s time to put my health first and at the moment that means running less and sleeping more. Ho hum.

I was really enjoying running a tempo, hill and interval session every week so hopefully I can pick it up in the New Year once I’m off the drugs (this makes it sound like I am currently having a lot more fun that I really am).

Pre-race postponement, I managed a 10 mile run to Regent’s Park on Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed it, though it did wipe me out for the rest of the day. Had we not had visitors on Saturday night I would have been in bed by 7.30pm. It’s non-stop party in my flat.

*world record for fastest 10k run by a 36 year old woman from North London with two cats called Bill and Ted

Sticking it to the Plan

I haven’t been sticking to the plan. I missed my interval run session on Tuesday, kept to the steady 5 miles on Wednesday, but wasn’t sure what to do yesterday. Should I run the stipulated ‘5 x long hills’ or do Tuesday’s 8 x 600m at 3k pace instead?

I left the house undecided. I’d mapped out a 600m section of road, but it started at the bottom of my ‘long hill’, so I was still keeping my options open. At the end of my mile warm-up I finally made up my mind and plumped for the intervals.

On the second interval, it dawned on me that the first 100m of the interval was straight up a hill. It was like a mini-hill session in itself. I was getting tired. Maybe I could count this as a hill session too? Was there therefore any need to run the full 8 intervals or could I possibly run fewer? Maybe I could run only 6. Or even 5?

I ran 5. Not enough for an interval session, not enough for short hill session, but enough for my tired legs and lungs. Take that, plan.

Dark Days Ahead

I’m very behind with the blogging this week. Oh, and the running too.

After Saturday’s 5k dash, and 12 miles on Sunday, I gave myself the day off on Monday and Tuesday. Since reading Haruki Murakami’s book, I always feel guilty taking two days off in a row. It’s one of his hard and fast rules, never to do that, but on Sunday’s run I had to stop to stretch out my left ankle which has started to grumble – a sure sign that I have been overdoing it.

On Wednesday I set the alarm for 6am, ready for my comeback. On leaving the house I discovered that, since just this time last week, a darkness has covered the earth. It was a cold, bright morning yesterday but the sun was barely up when I got home, after a 5 mile trip to Tufnell Park (photo below).

I was a little delayed leaving the flat, I must admit, after standing on the doorstep for a full two minutes trying to shove my housekey into the pocket of my running tights with my gloved hands. It would not go in! I couldn’t seem to find the pocket opening, and eventually yanked off my gloves and threw them on the doormat, in a moment of petulance. It was then that I realised, of course, that I had the tights on inside out. I went back inside to change…

5k Challenge – Parkrun Edition

This weekend Mr N and I did our first parkrun in Finsbury Park. I’ve been meaning to go along for ages, it’s such a great idea – a 5km race, measured and timed, running every Saturday morning and, best of all, completely free.

It was a beautiful morning, but I am in two minds about how it went:

On the one hand, I was the first woman (none of this ‘lady’ nonsense please) to finish, I ran 21.36 on a hilly course (43 minute 10k pace), I ran hard but didn’t kill myself.

On the other, Mr N beat me; I thought I could run under 21 minutes, I thought this training plan might help me run a 42 minute 10k, which seems really unlikely if I can’t run a 21 minute 5k. Did I mention that Mr N beat me?

I have always known that this day would come. The circle is now complete, he was but the learner, now he is the master. My powers are weak, the force is no longer strong with me. I have gone over to the dark side.

Birthday present?

On Thursday I was 36. Hard to believe, what with my youthful good looks and poorly dyed hair, but it is true. I can’t say I’m a fan of the inexorable march of time, but I still love birthdays.

When I was young, my parents used to plant presents at the foot of our beds to surprise us in the morning. Now that I’m older, and a little bit taller, this might result in smashing, so Mr N waited until I had drunk a cup of tea before breaking out the swag. It was a good haul – this is what comes of circulating a list in advance.

Terminally sensible, I took the day off and worked out a day of lovely things to take my mind off the ticking clock. It included a run, of course. Sadly I wasn’t in charge of the training programme and its birthday present to me was “tempo hills”.

Tempo hills are like regular hills designed by Satan. In a regular hill session, at the top you jog gasping back down like a deflated balloon slowly filling with air. In a tempo hill session you get to the top, turn right back around and run down fast, not pausing to recover your breath.

I demand a refund.

Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”)

At work I have been asked to come up with a set of KPIs for my organisation. We need them so that we can proactively check progress towards our goals going forward, to make sure we’re not just picking the low-hanging fruit on a case by case basis, and that we are operating where our locus is. Or something.

It has occurred to me, whilst I attempt to come up with statistics that describe what a difference we are making to the quality of life in the UK (yes), that I am just not very good with numbers. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has watched me trying to split a bill in a restaurant, or played scrabble with me when I attempt to keep score. These things are what modern technology was invented for.

So why, when running, am I still calculating distance and speed using only my few brain cells? Last night, according to the plan, I ran 5 x 1200m at 10k pace. What I actually did was run for 5 minutes, wheeze for a minute, run for 5 minutes, wheeze for a minute, run for 4 or 6 minutes (not quite sure which), wheeze for about 2 minutes until I remembered it was time to run again but then forget which interval I was on, wheeze again, and finish it off with 4 minutes of sprinting.

I have no idea whether any of these 5 minute session was run at 10k pace, or was 1200m in length. I really need to measure a proper route, remember it and stick to it. That or I need a shiny new piece of technology to do it for me.

Woooah, we’re half way there

Week 4 of the 10k training plan = done.

This weekend included a tempo run on Saturday and a 10 mile ‘easy’ run on Sunday, taking the week’s mileage to 28. I meant to test out my speed with a timed 5k this week but failed I’m afraid, so I can’t report any effect yet. I’m not injured, or exhausted, which either means that the training’s going really well, or that it’s too easy. In either case, I’m patient (lazy) enough to wait four weeks until the race to find out.

As for the weekend’s running, well, in the words of Woody Allen, “I wish I had some kind of affirmative message to leave you with, I don’t. Would you take two negative messages?”. Both runs were terrible – the first because I was hungover, the second because there is no justice in the world. I’m ready for week 5.