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.

Still on programme. Just.

Saturday dawned, I saw it, and had everything done, chores-wise, ready to be invaded by the gas man to change my meter. So imagine how excited I was when, at 8.17, the phone goes to let me know i’ve been cancelled again owing to the engineer phoning in sick. Yeah, right. And i’m the Pope.

So once again I find myself re-booking for the morning of the 10th January. Maybe it’ll be 5th time lucky, but I doubt it somehow.

Anyhow, it gave me some time to play with my Garmin and set the virtual partner to race me at 8.15 minute miles, this being my hope for the marathon race pace. Which I did. And I admired my mirror casing spraying handywork from last night (the woodburner made a fantastic low-bake oven simulator, almost convincing the lacquer that it was going to be gloss, not orange peel in texture – it’s just a shame a couple of bits of dust escaped and landed on the casing, but they’ll cut out next week when the coatings have fully hardened). And decided that i’d have to wear long trousers but since my tights are at work still, I opted for my mountain walking trousers, since they’re roomy, light, breathable and comfortable. I was a bit worried they’d rub, but this was unfounded. They were ace. And no-one took the piss, despite seeing another runner twice (a first to find someone else on my backroad route), two horse riders twice (I hate overtaking horses, not knowing whether to shout and startle them or run past them and startle them the same but with added danger of injury to me) as well as Greg slowing to say hello on his way back from checjking site while it’s unattended. Shame it was at 4.5 miles that he saw me, looking rough!

Anyway, I set off at 10.19 apparently, having started the Garmin once it’d taken all of 2 seconds to locate itself, set off a touch quickly and settled into a fair pace in an effort to get warm. Now, the watch wasn’t a problem at all, but my obsession with looking at it could have been, but when I accidentally touched the bezel and switched to the virtual partner screen, I was elated. How easy is that to see how quickly I am or not going? It’s great. And finding I was 26 seconds ahead, found it very useful to not have to rely on maths. Want to keep going fast? Just keep the advantage growing. Want to drop back? Why, just let the little man catch up a bit. Marvellous. And very smart indeed. The oddest part, as I look at the graphs, is how the data is arrived at. Clearly the tree cover disrupts the signal, but the pace drops right off in the process, recording 15 minute miles at one point, and mid tens quite a lot of the other times, when my pace remained constant. Why, if the signal is disrupted, doesn’t it average the times from good signal to good signal? I know it doesn’t change the overall timing, but it seems strange.

I’m generally happy, though. But I did go a bit quick ending up averaging 7.38 minute miles for the 5 mile run, with a very tight pair of calves now i’ve rested into the bargain. Balls. Just what I wanted to avoid before tomorrow’s 8 miler. Still, i’ve set my VP to 8.45 for that one, and i’m going to stick to it. Honest.

I’m also averaging a mince pie per day, so that’s all good, I just need some more running tops to complete the winter apparel wardrobe. Shopping. Poo.

Right, off already. I’ve got bits to do.