Category: Ho hum run

Back on the Horse

So I was feeling so down after my terrible run yesterday that I popped down to Camden and scored some heroin. That stuff is moreish!

What I might actually mean by the title of this post is that I got over my terrible run last night by eating some cake and then getting up and going for another one this morning. Another run, that is, not another cake. Although I could go for that too, now that I’ve got a 3.5 mile run under my belt today. That must equal about six cupcakes in calories, right?

It may not have been a long or a hard run, but size is not important. It got me back on the running horse and (sort of) prepared for Sunday’s 12 mile “race sim”. Bring on the Easter eggs.

Cherry cheer

I missed out last week’s update so let me  do that first: 4 runs, skipping Sunday’s due to hangover/tiredness/laziness*, managing 28 miles with two good hard sessions and one rubbish one. 

Tonight was interval day so i ran mine around Regent’s Park – 5 x 1200m at 10k pace with half time recoveries (5 x 5mins fast, with 2.5min recovs). It was ok, not great but not terrible, my legs were still tired from Saturday’s leap for joy.

At the risk of becoming a blossom bore, the cherry trees in the English Garden of the Reg are worth a glance or two. Like nature’s fireworks suspended briefly in full mid-air explosion. Catch them this week or miss out. 

* delete nothing- all three applicable

Priorities

Between leaving work yesterday afternoon and arriving at work this morning I:

  • Went to the supermarket
  • Watered the garden
  • Went for a 30 min tempo run, plus 1 mile warm up and cool down
  • Had a shower
  • Ate dinner
  • Made a coffee & walnut cake and a batch of raspberry, vanilla & white chocolate cupcakes
  • Made 2 batches of failed icing
  • Did my ironing and packed my bag for a weekend away
  • Sorted out my ipod
  • Slept
  • Got up
  • Fed cats
  • Went for a 4 mile easy run
  • Had a shower
  • Ate toast
  • Resurrected the batches of failed icing and iced the cakes
  • Got back in the shower because I realised I forgot to shave my legs
  • Finished packing

I am quite surprised I didn’t ice my i-pod or iron my legs.

Given this list to prioritise, most normal people would ditch the runs. I know I am odd but I didn’t feel I was making an effort to fit them in. Fitting in the other stuff was the pain.  I can’t remember much about either run, other than that I listened to the same episode of Kermode & Mayo’s film reviews (aka wittertainment) during each and it’s still going, but that doesn’t matter. Sometimes I don’t think about running – I run so I don’t have to think.

Slogging

I went to the gym last night for a cross-training/short run session, then was out again at 6am this morning for a 4 mile “easy run”. After my weedy efforts on the x-trainer and bike at the gym, the already complaining thighs had stepped it up to screaming level  as I slogged around the drizzly streets of Crouch End.

I did a good deal more pavement contemplation than usual. On a good run I observe the passing flowers, birds or clouds. I ponder the lives of weary strangers waiting for the bus; I redecorate front rooms and re-plant gardens. Today the only things I saw were litter and dogshit.

Some of the litter was in fact blossom, dropped from nearby heights to die prettily in the gutter. I could identify with it.

The Secret?

After work today I came home feeling knackered, hung the washing out, stood in my bedroom for about ten minutes vacillating, then finally put my new trainers on and went out for a run.

It was a dull, boring run-of-the-mill-type-run. Not fast. Not long. Nothing exciting happened, well nothing I haven’t seen or experienced in one of the 200 other times I’ve run that exact route. I barely remember doing it. Yet when I unlocked the door and came in the flat for the second time tonight, everything was different. I wasn’t tired, I wasn’t worrying about all the things I had to do or feeling down on myself.

If I achieve nothing else with this day, or this week, tonight I went for a run when I really didn’t want to and that makes me happy. Maybe these runs are the ones that count? The ones in between the races and the fancy training sessions.

Following this Nike-Advertisement-style high, I have rewarded myself with a night of crap TV. Not feeling quite so good about my thighs after The Model Agency, but at least I don’t have to work there.

New Leaves

Today I have turned over not one, but two new leaves. I have started a proper training programme and begun blogging every day. If I say it here, then I have to stick to it. Both leaves are now firmly turned over and stuck to the internet.

The first run in the programme was the snappily titled “5 x 800m at 10k pace; recover after each repeat for half the interval time”. In reality this translated as “leg it past frightened pedestrians at an uncertain pace for just over three minutes, panicking alternately that you are going too slow/fast, then wheeze along for two minutes hoping time has mysteriously stood still and you have a bit longer before the next sprinty bit”.

I was really surprised it was so hard, given that I’ve been running pretty regularly since a marathon in November. I think it’s because I struggle with the concept of 10k pace when not either a) running a 10k race, or b) on a treadmill. It’s difficult to judge how fast I am going when I have to dodge past dogs, stop for traffic lights and run up hills. I suppose I could use technology to solve this problem, but I have a feeling that it’s important to be able to judge how fast I’m running.

Apart from the uncertainty about pace, it was a fair start to my training, a 35 minute run home down some of Islington and Holloway’s less salubrious roads, listening to the new Radiohead album. I have a theory about that album which I’m hoping that future listens will bear out: I think it’s like the ‘lotus flower’ in the middle track – it slowly unfurls, starting out harsh and impenetrable, but opening out into something beautiful by the end.

Effortless running

Ok, running wherein no particular effort was expended. Not quite the same thing…

I went to the gym on Tuesday and ran 3 miles on a treadmill in the middle of my usual cross training routine, then ran 5 miles last night around Crouch End, just before the Arsenal-Barcelona match. I felt quite stiff after the weekend during both – my ankles are worrying me a tiny bit.  Weirdly, on Tuesday it was the left ankle then on Wednesday the right. I really should stretch more (that will be my epitaph).

As I’m still at work at 6pm today, so there is no chance I’m going to make myself run tonight. This might be a wise move.  I have my work appraisal tomorrow and I know I’d spend each step worrying about all the things I could say, I shouldn’t say, they might say, they might not say, I might cry. That way madness, truly, lies.

Weekly round-up

Drizzle. Not a word I want to hear, unless it’s followed by ‘extra virgin olive oil’. This morning I ran 7 miles in grey, windy, drizzling rain. My legs were quaking on the hills like an old chair about to collapse and I ran 7 miles in the same time it took me to run 8 yesterday.

On the good side, I made it to 25 miles this week, 25.5 to be precise. I ran 15 of them this weekend, so it wasn’t exactly a well balanced week, but let’s gloss over that. Quantity, not quality, is what I’m aiming for at the moment. Quality begins in a fortnight. Mmm quality street. I need chocs.

Six in the Morning

After yesterday’s brush with incontinence, I was quite happy to find today’s run a bit dull in comparison. It was cold, it was dark (even at 7.30 when I got back) and I was half asleep, but I ran six miles without really noticing and it felt good.
 
I stuck to the usual route: to East Finchley and back down Muswell Hill. Mostly uphill for the first 2 miles, then I get to sit back for 3.5 before scaling Mount Doom.  It’s really not a big hill but it gets steeper every morning. There is a particular stretch of pavement which is so full of potholes it’s like negotiating an Alpine pass. One day I’ll break my ankle and then Haringey Council will… not really care.

I’ve eaten a biscuit for every mile I ran this morning. It wasn’t part of a nutritional plan, but maybe it should be? I might try the same thing tomorrow with glasses of wine. Might? Will. Toodlepip.