Hello all. I've been following with interest and empathy all the recent posts about people having lost their mojo, having difficulty forcing themselves out the door to run, feeling lethargic etc. Me too, big time. However, I recently celebrated (well, not really) my 50th birthday, and have set myself the challenge of running 50K of "proper" races this year. I kick things off next Saturday, 24th March, with a 7.3k woodland romp.
But I've not been very good recently about my 3x5k per week routine. Anyway, over the last week or so I decided I needed to up my game, and I actually did three runs last week. Not 5k, but 30 minutes, which I was relatively happy with. Today, however, it was less than a week to go, and having failed miserably at sticking to ju-ju's plan, I was woefully behind with my extended distances. So today had to be long run day. I identified a new, longer route, and set off, having told myself I could walk the hills if absolutely necessary.
So that's what I did. I ran most of it, but the two horrible hills that I was dreading all the way around, I gave myself permission to walk up. In the end, I completed 7.3 km in 54 minutes, with an average pace of 7.30, which is around what I was doing a month ago on my 30 minute runs. I was very chuffed with myself.
Weirdly, on the final straight, coming back towards home, I realised I was feeling extremely comfortable, and ended up running further than I had intended. I don't know if this counts as "runner's high" but I'll take it, whatever it is.
Looking at my Garmin data afterwards, it was around that point that my heart rate appeared to jump suddenly from 150 to 180, then 190, and stayed that way for the last 10 minutes. Never seen that before. Was it because my heart was pumping more oxygen into my system that I felt so good? Did that happen because I was a bit dehydrated? Who knows. Anyway I didn't die, and I've felt pretty good all day since. And I'm looking forward to the 7.3k next weekend.