Post Equinoctial Warmth

Awaking this morning to a warm house, I wondered if the heating had come on. But no, it was just very mild. To the level of the car heater saying 17 degrees on the way to work. It might not have been a true 17 degrees, but when the reading is so high it makes the minus 9 it was reading in the winter seem a long way away. Erm, yes…about 3 months if we’re unlucky. Backs up something I was reading that despite the daytime temperatures being consistently low this summer, we can expect all sorts of global warming excitement with the year end average temperatures since the night time readings have consistently been higher than ever.

Shame that hasn’t helped my motorbike mileage much.

Still, the day continuing warm was good for morale and I set off for a sprightly 3 miles with the thought that it was pleasantly mild. Then started sweating like an ox. All around the run, it was increasing with every pace and I couldn’t believe it was possible to get that wet in 23 minutes, but there you go.

A nice run, a cycle planned tomorrow as the commute, then 12 miles on Saturday which i’m not looking forward to. Still, it must be done and i’m nearly there, so do it I shall.

Fresh. Like.

Yesterday was a day spent mostly driving 367 miles home on motorways to avoid the caravans on the A303, despite missing Stonehenge and a field full of pigs, so today I didn’t expect much, to be honest.

Following the 11 miles on Thursday and 9 hours driving on Friday, Saturday was a most excellent day of walking around Cornwall (piccies all over Facebook), which strangely gave me a very sore pair of calves today. A combination of walking boots (the best in the world. Soooooo comfy and grippy, rock playing was a joy) and my once again massively bowed legs, I guess. My legs bow and straighten as they get used differently. They have since I was about 14 or so – if I think about using them properly, my hips hurt for a bit but the knees seem to straighten. Run loads, lark about and cycle a lot and they bow. Looking at the pics of my tight-ish jeans and the legs therein and boy are they bad at the moment.

Ah, well, i’m enjoying things.

But my tight calves (not stretching in the car yesterday?) were a small worry before the run.

Not during it, though. As soon as I started, they gave no hint of pain or tightness at all. Not a drop during 5 miles up and down (well, down then up, then up more, then down a load then back up, to be more accurate).

Simply splendid.

Shame I got back to work, changed in a rush to go shopping and packed my things for tomorrow and forgot my site boots so will have to go to site to collect them before my course, thus ruining plans of a lie in.

Bugger. I’ll be off to bed, then.

7 more runs planned before the half and i’m quite enjoying things. Very odd.

A blog. I’ll call him Andrew.

And so the holiday that has grumbled on through constant 20 plus mile per hour winds and too much occasional rain for my and my underused motorcycle’s tastes has nearly exhausted itself.

Which was much the same as me when, after another little loop to increase my mileage to the planned 11 before heading up the hill and home, I bumped into my amazing girlfriend on her way to a business lunch with the local business elite (networking, apparently. That seems to me to equal spring rolls, bhajis, sandwiches and all else to make me jealous) whereupon I stopped and said hello befiore realising I wasn’t sure I could get started again.

The first 4 miles were surprisingly easy considering i’d slacked off yesterday’s run because of impending weekends away and sore knees, the hilly bit of the run went as most hilly sections do (but hilly is an overstatement – the road rolls a bit but the total climbs probably amount to about 4 inches, so please take my whining with a pinch of the necessary) and tired me out enough to reach for a jelly baby (always yellow. How many yellow ones in a pack? Far too many.) before the busy road past the Hawkenbury pub. Which, as usual, caused me to stop 3 times for lorries in opposing directions and messed up my rhythm completely.

But I shouldn’t moan, I guess. One of the re-starts made me perk up and realise what’s going wrong on the longer runs. As I get more tired, i’ve noted my form dips and I start to get out of symmetry, roll my shoulders as well as lengthening my pace and falling onto my heels more. I use the heels style deliberately sometimes to force a change in style to allow leg recovery, but hadn’t noted the other traits until today. And addressing them made the next couple of miles seem much easier. Whether through ease of running or through concentrating on something else, I don’t know, but it’s surely something to monitor in the future.

Still didn’t make it any easier to turn from home and do an extra 2 mile loop, though, just as I was feeling well worn out. My knees seemed to bear the brunt of the extra effort required and for the first time since the Hastings half 18 months ago, my knees feel as though they’ve been through a lot. They survived marathon training relatively unscathed so i’m not really worried about things, but it’s something to make sure is fixed before my next outing.

Which should be a shorty over the weekend, but being away and that may turn into Monday after work as I settle into some sort of routine before the 11th. Assuming the house doesn’t sell (having no holiday left to house hunt if things get serious, training time is the next obvious slot to nibble into!), things look promising for the race itself – enjoyment is the re-affirmed goal. With a time to be proud of hopefully being a bonus if things go well. I’ve prepared the energy bars, baked mince pies and everything this week – some good had better come out of them!

And so, to Cornwall! Well, after i’ve visited the pub in a couple of minutes, of course.

The Monday slow

A List.

• I’m off work, so it’s raining. Naturally. I wonder if Noah was me in a previous life and the flood happily coincided with an extended few days off he took?
• A succession of strangers keeps coming through my door measuring things, asking questions and demanding money. I wonder if i’ll get any viewers on the house once the marketing is sorted?
• I went shopping yesterday and bought some new underwear.
• I won’t be going out on the bike all the while it’s lashing it down.
• Yesterday evening was a 5 mile run at easy pace. I kept talking to myself (out loud) to make sure my pace didn’t rise too high. What a strange little man I must seem to any passers by. Thankfully there were only two horse riders and I shut up before they heard me. I think.
• Today, i’d like to do my three miles so I can do my 11 before I go to Cornwall. If not, i’ll be running in the extreme South West of the country. I’ll see how things go.

The (almost) forgotten blog

Please forgive me for I have erred. Or something. Yep, another Sunday blog for a Saturday run.

Best intentions yesterday didn’t get me out of the door in the earlyish morning as planned and a frustrated search for shorts blew my mood for a run right out of the water. So I put things off until the mid afternoon, which wasn’t the best idea. Not least for the result of nearly forgetting to blog it.

I felt a bit odd all day – constantly wanting to drink but not being in the least dehydrated; I just felt a touch drained. And think half the reason for putting the run off was the planned race pace 15k. I detest the race pace long runs – none of the intensity or atmosphere of a race but the training need to up the game to race speed. And the fear of failure to dent the confidence should things go tits up. Still, a spell on the motorbike cleared my head and at about 3.15 I set off for 9 odd miles of 7.35 pace running.

Oh, and I planned it on my least favourite road - a combination of undulating, busy and boring.

A run to dread and forget, then.

Well not quite. I didn’t have a plan beyond the basic pace, which on this route isn’t easy to maintain – if I slow on the up slopes to preserve energy, the pace on the flat and downs is  forced and not conducive to longer distances. But if I keep the pace up on the ups, the ensuing flat feels overly tiring and I risk slowing on the premise that i’m about to blow up. Guess that’s the effect of running near peak pace and what the training is designed to ease out.

Doesn’t make things any easier, though. Especially when I start off beating my Garmin, then decide to change plan partly through boredom, partly tiredness, partly through the desire for a change.

The first 5 miles went 7.20, 7.29, 7.32, 7.31, 7.31. Nice and steady. Then I stopped, creating a 9.01. Just fancied admiring the view amongst other things. The running pace remained at 7.35, just pacing myself against the virtual partner, but the next mile at 7.43 was affected by jelly babies, drink and cars, then another stop equalled an 8.30 mile before the final roll home. An overall average at 7.51 was surprising. I suppose it might be similar to fartlek runs averaging surprisingly high overall pace (not that I do them or like the name but there you go!), but with proper stops, not just reduced pace, I thought it’d be slower. Certainly felt like I was stationary for longer overall than I was. And felt quite interesting to push the limbs straight back to race pace after a stop. The babies weren’t the only jelly on the run after all.

The oddest part of the run is that it felt good. The combination of long first stint then a series of sprints to aimed for locations (the first was a random spot selected on the spur of the moment) made up on the fly seems to have turned a dreaded run into a bit of fun.

Not at all what I should have done in preparation, i’m sure, but I feel comfortable that I can keep 7.35’s up for the race, it being flat and all, but that won’t quite achieve my target time, so i’m now to decide what to go for on race day. There are still a few weeks to go, i’ll be adjusting things for temperature and how I feel on the day, i’m sure, as well as hoping I feel good and not odd like yesterday. But where any extra pace along with greater distance will come from, I don’t know. Maybe i’ll be sensible and just accept it’ll be another year before I crack the 1hr 40’s.

Who knows.

Discrepancies…

After a day spent driving around West London yesterday it was nice to get back to normal today.

The first time I got out of the car yesterday was after lunch in order to get into the driving seat to do my driving assessment and sure enough, both legs felt waaaay tight, so last night was a stretchy affair and today all the stairs were taken with a mind to easing out any residual tightness in my calves.

And the combination of rest and stretch must have done something since I was keen and eager (and all other words and phrases I can use inappropriately when I fancy) to get going.

And get going I did.

Not looking at the Garmin for the first half mile, I switched it to the virtual partner screen to see how thing had progressed. And I was surprised to find it playing up again. After ages of behaving itself. It was indicating that, despite me being out of breath (I felt like going for it a bit), I was bang on 7.55 pace. Which was surely wrong, but by how much I didn’t know. I’d cleared the patch where the reading always goes squiffy so left things as they were and kept my breathing constant to see how the pace looked, albeit with a view to ignoring the pace at the end and looking at the overall time.

At which point the time against target came down, things became constant and I realised it probably got lost somewhere and the map would be hilarious.

But on the return leg, as I went into the footpath bit, apparently I went slow again. The virtual partner started gaining time on me and I couldn’t shake him off. Despite doing a sample sprint to throw him. Until I hit the road again and gained 15 seconds in 200 yards.

There’s something odd in the satellites around Loose, for sure. I’d hate to try and rely on a sat-nav around there – it’d be knackered!

Still, I knew the time would be reliable and it was this which pleased me. Very quick for a Wednesday with hills.

And now, as i’ve got the data onto the computer, can I laugh. Garmin’s software has 3.07 miles with the start and finish about 0.25 miles away from each other. Apparently, I ran from the field next to site, over two fences and a tree then across the MUGA on the school grounds before joining my actual route two corners from where I started. The rest of the route is bang on my actual route. Sporttracks, on the other hand, has the same bastardised route but maps it at 3.16 miles. All my ”genuine” traces of the same route put it between 3.06 and 3.03 miles, depending on how far around the car park I leave it until switching the watch.

Very odd. Still, the time was good, right on target for a mid-week push of a run, so hopefully i’ll be able to enjoy a good fast 15k “race” at the weekend in preparation for Royal Parks. This time trial will tell me what actual time i’m to set the virtual partner for in London before hoping the little fucker will give me a reliable output! I’m hopeful of reasonable things, if not quite as fast as i’d like, but we’ll see. There’s still a few weeks training to go.

Nice to feel good about a run, though.

Monday and hot

In the strange way my mind plays rotten tricks on me, i’ve been busily avoiding thoughts of tonight’s run simply because again the distance has been upped. Only another half a mile, but somehow 5 seems a daunting prospect after work. Which is completely at odds with the winter training which saw 3 midweek runs, going as far as 8 miles at the peak (which didn’t last until injury set in) and serves to reinforce the power the brain has over the body.

Still, a busy afternoon preparing for a day off site tomorrow (learning how to drive again. After 2 years the company have decided I need extra tuition due to the insurance rating of the car. Might need extra sense to remember to slow for speed cameras if I was caught on the A13 as I fear the other week, but generally I thought things were ok. How wrong I am. And how cruel to know the company takes two weeks to pass on speeding tickets after the authorities have their two, so i’ll be kept in suspense about 80 in a 50 limit for 4 weeks total until I can relax about the crime or know i’m doomed to off the scale bike insurance. If the Dartford crossing and Blackwall tunnel hadn’t both been shut at 4.30 in the morning, I wouldn’t have been a) on the road or b) doing those speeds anyway. Curses.) kept my mind occupied well enough to cause surprise to my legs at 5.15 as I set off (Incidentally, how long was that bracketed passage? Almost forgot about it myself. Must stop bracketting and develope new techniques for asides) (One day). And what a hot set-off it was. Keeping to the shady bits, I was aware it’ll not be long before it’s dark and cold, which seems a shame but that’s the turning of the seasons. And it serves to remind that up until 2 years ago, I used to stop running for 6 weeks or more in the summer, waiting for cooler weather to return.

Still, after a steady first mile, the uphill section went pretty well considering it was into wind, I did some full road width meandering in the final 2.5 miles to make as much distance as I could to stretch a 4.8 mile route into a 5 miler, seeing as I didn’t fancy tacking an extra loop on to take things over distance and I returned with 4.98 on the Garmin. Just 34 yards short, then. That’ll do.

But with sore legs that are now to be confined to the car for a day. That’ll make for an interesting recovery plan tomorrow. Is stretching the calf while depressing the accelerator an approved driving technique? I’ll see how tolerant the assessor is if nothing else, I guess.

Oh, and yes, my soreness has subsided. I wonder if the tackle has superquick healing properties like the tongue. Or if it just makes injury feel worse than it is to protect against long term damage? Hopefully i’ll never have to find out.

Sore

Another learning run in preparation for the upcoming half.

A tired Friday evening developed into an earlyish night and a Saturday morning spent excitedly looking out of the window at cloudless skies, thoughts of getting the house on the market and 10 miles in the tail end of the summer.

Definitely my favourite time of the year. The sun’s still warm, the trees are full of character and colour, the lawn isn’t quite so bleached after a good few showers but the warmth from the sun doesn’t become unbearable for any sort of activity.

And so it was, after hanging out the washing and being chastised by JB for still being in the house (I like to let my breakfast go down for an hour, not run before food unlike her), that I set off for 10 miles around the long loop with a bit tacked on either end. That’ll be an extended loop, then.

And the first couple of miles felt most excellent. Slow, compared to cycling (strange how the brain gets accustomed to the ground going past at a certain rate and notices how slowly the miles build when the rate slows), but easy and generally encouraging. The straight by the railway seemed to roll on forever, though – the difference brought on by being 2 miles later into the run.

It was at 6 miles, though, that things went odd. For the first time ever, I noticed a soreness in the pants that I didn’t like. Not usually paying any attention to my underwear, today had been no different. But that’s all going to change now. As the miles plugged on, my pace remained easy but my pain escalated as clearly the wrong undercrackers for the task rubbed my balls as sore as a sore thing on sore day in soreville. When it’s sore outside. All around the joint of sack and sphincter. Rubbish. No rub and tug for me until things ease. Hopefully quickly!

So now I must remember on running days that undercrackers matter. Bah. Something else to consider.

Still, 10.1 miles, an easy pace, pleasant run, nice weather and now a house to hope I can get rid of.

Motorbike tomorrow, please. Oh, and some energy bars and mince pies to make. I’ve lost another 4 pounds average on the scales and need to become a normal size again. Or investigate the smoothie Cathy reckons has 890 odd calories – that should help!

Tired legs

The afternoon at work was mostly spent wondering if my legs were in fact in any fit state to go for a 4.5 mile run but, with thoughts of one of the QS’s being off with swine flu (a fact I in fact doubt – they’re the laziest wankers in the world, not worth the oxygen they steal and I wouldn’t put it past them to use it as an excuse for yet more time off even if they do need a genuine excuse with it later in the year. The one in question has already had 3 months off this year with an infected finger, too, so I think he might have bad form. Bitter? Nope, they’re just lazy and are pissing me off, but the blog’s not about them, so enough!) and my nervousness that i’ll get something similar and lose a bit of training, I thought it best I go while i’m fit and able.

So go I did.

The wind’s been very strong all afternoon (i’ve just discovered it might be something to do with tropical storm Danny – woo hoo, with a name like that, is it a storm that will be short and sound like Marge Simpson or am I stereotyping Danny’s against the only one I remember? Ah, no, there was Danny the ceiling fitter foreman. He wasn’t short or squeeky. Just a buffoon.) so I elected for the hilly route backwards so at least the breeze would blow me down the longest straight. Didn’t help much when it was in my face up the first hill, though, which allowed me to puff past the other school we’re building where I was, predictably, seen by one of the managers. Why can’t I be flying along easily and quickly when recognised? Always the same. Ah, well.

Still, generally the tactic worked. I encountered a traffic queue at Loose which meant I overtook all the cars that had driven past in the last mile and a bit, but again this was an uphill bit so if anyone watched my progress, they’d have witnessed a rapid deterioration into stumbling random movement. The tactic worked, though – the hardest bit was the final half mile which, after passing the pair who get on very very very very very very very well at work in their seperate cars at the bottom junction (strange – they left work 15 minutes before me and somehow took 45 minutes to drive half a mile. Wonder what they’d been “discussing” all that time. They do a lot of discussing. Wonder if their respective partners could help with some answers to their needs?), was almost the hardest what with being smack bang into the headwind with no hedges to provide any protection.

Still, 4.5 miles, no swine flu yet and far too much rambling.

Happy days.

The Sunday run

It seems to have got to that part of the training that involves a fair distance in miles without really taking overly long to cover it. Today (well, yesterday…i’m writing on Monday about Sunday which was meant to be a Saturday run, but the days make sense to me so i’ll stick with it!) was to be 9 miles which, at about 8 minute miles, is just under one and a quarter hours. A long enough time to be out on the legs but not ruinous to a day’s schedule.

Unless it means putting the run off, which I did on Saturday.

So well before 10, I was out running at a nicely reduced pace, no traffic on the roads to speak of, warming up from a surprisingly chilly morning, thinking it strange that after 2 miles I still had a full hour in front of me and suddenly the run looked long. A result of lots of short outings, I guess, combined with the loop being one normally done on the bike as a little outing to see ducks shagging, unconverted oast houses (pretty rare, it must be said) and not normally feeling daunting in the least. The mental block is from most of the run being over 3 miles from home, which I consider my crawling distance – if everything goes disastrously wrong, below 3 miles it’s ok but over that it turns nasty.

Still, the run went well. All the miles were around target pace which, with the fair few undulations on the route, is fine by me, and I felt reasonably fresh at the end. Not 6 hours later, when things started to tighten up, it should be said, but pretty good overall. I think the nastiest bit was the little loop I put in around the park to make the mileage bang on 9. I hate little loops and things, but the thought of a shorter run, or going past the house and back seemed far worse so I just got on with it.

And returned to news that Cathy’s entered a 40 mile bike race in a few weeks time. Eek. That’ll be proper lycra boys, tri-athletes, road racers and all sorts. And Cathy on a pink Pashley with added wicker. I wonder if they’re ready for her?

Right. Time to sort the house decisions out. How much to market it for, where to move to and which agent. It’s been 9 years since I moved for a reason and i’m beginning to remember just what that reason is.