Following on from yesterday’s successful run, my smaller than a small thing brain decided to make matters simple and repeat the experience but in reverse.
Not running backwards (see irunbecauseilovefood’s comment from the link over there in my blogroll regarding the Hastings half marathon a while back) but in the opposite direction.
I dislike the second half of this route in tonight’s direction – not for a rational reason, it seems, since it’s a loop that starts and finishes in the same spot but it seems like there’s more uphill this way. “Uphill” is relative – they’re not even slopes, really, which makes the dislike even more irrational, but my brain decided on a direction and that seems to be that.
So, despite myself, I set off. At a startlingly slow pace. First half a mile took 4.07 and, coincidentally, I looked at the Garmin right at this spot. And thought “that’s about right…I’m barely breathing, my leg hurts to all hell and I feel fat”. So I plodded on, but on my favourite bit of the run in my fave direction – swerving among blind corners on a narrow path, slightly downhill (again a relative term) before heading for a couple of puddles across the path. Which produced the quickest half mile of the run without any more effort and with the pain subsiding…at 3.44, it was hardly speedy but felt great before my sense of self preservation took over and the next 3 miles passed without effort, pace change or excitement.
Saw two other runners (one of them twice…going amazingly fast…thankfully in the opposite direction so as not to cause embarrassment!), got rained on, took some “outside” corners on the same route to see if it made any mileage difference and was amazed to find the distance exactly the same as last night but the time actually ending up 35 seconds quicker overall.
Maybe the runs I don’t like turn out for the good after all.
Leg pain seems to be at a peak, I think. It hasn’t got any worse but lasts a bit longer after my initial massages and needs a fair tweak at lunchtime to make it stay away through the afternoon. Other than that, if I can shake my cough and regain the ability to take some deeper lungfulls of air, I might be flying. Certainly all the other leg muscle groups are damage free and itching for some performance runs.
But they’ll have to wait until I’m sure I won’t explode. Maybe June, then!
1952.48 miles to go. Good, innit?
