So, after battling so many different gremlins on Tuesday, I was up with the 6 a.m. lark this morning, running clothes straight on, downstairs for quick cuppa, warm up leg swings and out of the door before my brother even surfaced!
I briefly debated a longer run, but decided to do a steady 5K straight run after Jeffing on Tuesday. Warm up walk up the lane towards the village and then I was off. Nice and steady. I did glance at my heart rate and was surprised to see it was climbing up Zone 3 already. Still in the first km, it suddenly fell to Zone 2. I donβt know what that was all about, so I ignored it for the rest of the run!
The end of the first km sees a slight incline, but Iβm running slowly enough to be able to cope with it quite easily. There are a lot of runners and walkers out this morning. A few of the people I saw walking had headphones and seemed to be βwalking with purposeβ so I wondered if they were Jeffing or doing Couch to 5K π
The second km starts with a lovely downhill stretch through a walkway, which connects the two parallel roads that I run on. I always like this part! Turn left at the bottom and the path undulates a fair bit until I turn left past the post office and towards the parallel road again. There is a short but quite steep climb, but I shorten my stride and keep going, and noticing that my second km is a few seconds faster than my first. So I go into the third km having decided I would try for negative splits with a burst of speed for the last km. Its going to be one of those runs!
Running towards the t-junction, now. The gremlin did put in a brief appearance, telling me I could turn left and 4K would be absolutely fine π. I briefly flirted with the idea before turning right for the 5K. I start the fourth km, having completely forgotten my pace for the third (this happens often!) so just keep going with what feels like a slightly faster pace. I am getting a little tired now and appreciate the few seconds stop for traffic. Running alongside the common and back into the village, I start the fifth km, but I have a slope to go up before I fly downhill, so I shorten my stride and deal with the incline. Oh, it feels steep this morning! Then I turn up a side road to add a few hundred metres as I donβt like to run out of road at the end. Now I can run down the hill to finish strong. My brother is just getting in his van to leave for work, heβs probably expecting me to end my run at the house, but Iβm in the middle of flying down the hill, so I just I wave happily and carry on π
Not a sub 40 minute 5K this morning, but definitely an enjoyable and controlled one π
Splits:
8:55, 8:46, 8:41, 8:33, 7:00