The intention this morning was to do the 60 minute run I planned for Thursday before I had my touch of sunstroke. I took another rest day yesterday as I’d slept till 9.30 and it was too hot for me to run then.
I set off hoping to do at least 8.1k which would bring my monthly run total up to a nice round 50 miles. As the furthest I’ve done so far this year is 7.2k in 2 x 30 min I thought I might have to add a couple of minutes to my total... that or run faster.
Well after I’d been going for about 15 minutes I realised that “faster “ wasn’t going to happen so I just settled down to enjoy the morning. As I ran through the Park a squirrel ran across my path and, by the time I’d fumbled and got my phone out of my belt, he was up the tree laughing at me. I did get a shot where his little head can just be seen in the fork of the tree ( about a 3 second pause in my run ) and then I carried on. It was lovely and cool in the shade of the trees around the edge of the park but quite uncomfortable when the bright sunlight flashed through the leaves and blinded me for a few seconds here and there- even though I had my proper running sunglasses on.
I carried on down Taw Parade towards the square and continued under the pedestrian subway, out the other side and towards the rest of the Tarka Trail again. The tide was out and the Taw was not looking her best. When the tide is in it’s a beautiful tranquil scene but when it’s out...... it’s a different tale. I counted 7 upended shopping trolleys in about a half k distance.. and old bikes etc too. Such a shame !!
Anyway I carried on for about about another 15 minutes and then as he said “ you have 5 mins left” I glanced at my watch....and a quick calculation meant I would have to add on about 6 or 7 minutes to get to 8.1k. “I can do that “ I thought and plodded on. Now by this time I knew my times were slow and this little idea started to twinkle away at the back of my head... “ if I get to 8.1 ... I might as well make it 8.5 to round it up....”
“ or maybe 9??? That’s a rounder number..”
And then all of a sudden I was hearing the ping as I hit 9k and thought “ you know what? I could do 10k as it’s my last run of the month”
And I did!! It wasn’t fast and it wasn’t pretty. But I did it!!! Apart from the 3 or 4 seconds when I snapped the squirrel I ran the whole 10k and I am so pleased with myself. Nearly as much as when I did my first one. I don’t think I shall be pushing myself to HM distance this summer I just want to build on this 10k, so I can do them regularly and maybe speed up my 5k times.
Happy Happy me😁😁🥂🥂🎉🎉
Did my first 10k (or doesn’t it count?)
Yay 10k
First 10k!!
First 10K race done! 
