I decided this week that I would try and get back to doing a fartlek style run once a week as my pace seems to have dropped off since being ill a few weeks ago. Well it sounded like a good idea in principle...
I got myself togged up and once again used the dulcet tones of Michael Johnson and the C25K Week 1 Run 1 to get my timings from. Knowing that I would only be running for 30 minutes helped get me in the mood, and a very varied playlist could only help further.
But before starting the app I ensured I did my dynamic stretches followed by a good brisk 5 minute warm up walk. So what's new, you might ask? Don't you always start your runs like this?
I'm usually pretty religious about my stretches and warm up walk, but earlier this week I inadvisably tried running without. I was in a rush to get to my daughter's for the delights of painting and decorating, which obviously I was looking forward to immensely 🤔... (OK, so I may have lied about looking forward to it, as I was part way through painting every bit of her and her boyfriend's 3 bedroom house.) so decided to set off for a run with no stretching and only 2 minutes of a saunter.
Well what a trial that turned out to be and probably didn't save me any time at all. I was due to run 10k but 2 kilometres in my shins felt as if they were being attacked much in the way I'd attacked the skirting boards with an electric sander. The pain just grew and grew. "You must have shin splints," a small voice said. I was on the point of calling it a day, when I realised that it might not be shin splints, but I might definitely have brought one of my gremlins with me on my run. 2 kilometres would hardly have been worth getting my kit on for, my conscience argued with the nasty gremlin 😈, so I slowed right down and continued running as gently as I could to try to reduce the pounding from the pavement. Eventually the gremlin took umbrage and decided to shut up for a while.
I thought he'd gone home, but he was just keeping schtum until I'd completed the next kilometre. This time he stayed quiet but started poking my hip with a large invisible broom handle. At first I could ignore it but after a few hundred metres of this I ground to a halt, and did my best to stretch out my joint. For a moment I thought about phoning Miss Razouski and saying that if she wanted a painter and decorator today she would have to come and pick me up in the car otherwise I'd be suffering from paralysis. Alright... so maybe that was a bit extreme... and maybe she would accuse me of hypochondria... and maybe I wouldn't live it down in the Razouski family... so I carried on running - if you can call it running, if I'd gone any slower I would have been going backwards.
The joint did ease after another half km or so and I did manage to complete the goal of 10km. But boy was it hard, and boy was it slow. By the time I got home the rest of Razouski Redecorators Ltd were waiting to leave for the house. "What took you so long?" Mr R asked, "I thought you weren't doing a warm up?"
Not only was the run a tough one, I also regretted my decision not to warm up as my legs decided, as if I hadn't been punished enough already, to let me know what a poor decision I'd made, by aching throbbingly throughout the rest of the day. This wasn't the best state to be in to be painting doors and door frames.
And yesterday, Friday, when I should have been doing fartleks I decided to give my legs an extra recovery day and promised them I'd warm up properly before venturing out today.
So there we were, Michael Johnson, my well warmed up legs, and me. As I'd already walked for 5minutes when Michael said to start walking I started a gentle jog for 5 mins and when he asked me to run I ran quickly. And it seemed to work. By the time I'd completed all 8 " fast runs" with recovery runs every time I was told to walk, I was pretty puffed, but no aches or pains, and no gremlins. I usually hate this kind of fartlek running, but today I think I almost enjoyed it. I'd intended to complete the run by continuing to 5km, but when I got there decided another kilometre wouldn't hurt. My legs have forgiven me for the mistreatment earlier this week, and haven't given a single twinge.
Maybe fartleks aren't all bad after all.
3K With Fartleks 
First Fartlek - Done ✅ 
