I’ve got into a bit of a habit over the last week or so, of missing my morning runs. Which is fine when it’s windy and sideways rain, but yesterday I had absolutely no excuse. And to top it off TSword kindly posted a beautiful picture on the forum of the glorious sunrise that I’d missed. I’d been miffed about missing the sunrise for the whole day. Rain was forecast for 8pm so I’d need to get my butt out quickly after work to get my run in.
My pre-run faffage levels have increased considerably since graduating C25K, it’s getting a bit ridiculous actually… changing, getting hydrated, sorting out my lights, headphones, armstrap, apps, playlist ....faffage. Its gotten to the point now that my super efficient better-half is standing in the doorway wetting herself laughing at me “have you STILL not gone out for a run yet!” GRRRRR! Need to cut the faffage by at least half I think, to stop her laughing at me… if you have anti-faffage tips please do let me know...
Anyway out the door I went, I was going for the 8K this evening, with the option to do more, if I felt like it. Same route as my previous 8K along the main road to Lee on Solent, thankfully with less wind.
I was listening to my ‘dirty’ Drum & Bass playlist today, which always results in a similar type of run... and yep… I should've guessed, the first kilometre was waaaay too quick… I wasn't going to say this but, embarrassingly it was my quickest split 😳 OOPS!!! I know… I know… I know… epic fail at the beginning 🙄 I managed to tame the following 3k’s to a more controlled pace and reached the halfway point. Things felt good, so instead of heading back in the opposite direction, I thought I’d wing it and get a bit creative, so I looped round through a dark carpark and ventured down the sailing club slipway onto the seafront path.
Lovely I thought… perfectly flat for the next few KM… Oh balls… a huge dark silhouette stood in the distance before me, slowly being revealed by my chest torch... I’d forgotten I’d have to go over ‘The Ramp’ from this direction… a steep man made ramp up to a platform at road level, then back down the other side again. OOOF!!! The ramp hit me hard, and took a chunk out my pace for the following kilometre. After a while I was back in the game, panthering happily along the dark level beach path. 8K came and went but I’d already decided to plow on to claim the 9K prize.
Back up the last hill from the beach and into Hill Head…
9K done, in 55:17 with an average pace of 6:08 and 250M elevation gain …and no rain! I was incredibly happy on my cool down walk home, and had made up for missing that beautiful sunrise this morning.
On my next 9K I’ll get back on top of my splits with some slightly calmer music and a pre planned route that completely avoids my arch nemesis... ‘The Ramp’.
Hope everyone is ok out there, how are those runs going? X
⚡ThunderSloth⚡out