A run with purpose. Hoorah!

Firstly a huge thank you to @GailXrunning and @oldbadknees for giving me food for thought last night.

As a result, I started the NRC HM plan this morning and "ticked off" my first effort. This gave me a sense of purpose and as such I had to put some effort into the run rather than drift along.

The end result was a sense of achievement and actually feeling the benefit of putting the effort in. Great result.

It was frosty this morning and it took quite a lot of faffage to get ready as I needed all my equipment for an NRC guided run. However, the running was almost cancelled when I went to my running drawer only to find no man tights. I then realised I had put them in the washing machine on Monday and forgot about them. This was a major disaster. Fortunately it transpired that I had forgotten to switch the machine on and having past the sniff test and warmed them up on the rads they were deemed good to go 😀.

The warm up was frosty and enjoyable and the Fartlek / intervals started strongly. Obviously more effort was required the more intervals I ran but, I maintained it through to the end and had a fabulous time. 👍

Happy running everyone.

[Instructor57 Graduate10]

Nice one !Good to find a purpose again !

And it was nice out this morning .

Especially in the man tights 😁

[nowster Graduate10 in reply to Instructor57]

It must be time to post this again:

youtu.be/hGDNTJZyW38(Not working as expected?)

[Instructor57 Graduate10 in reply to nowster]

😁👍

[Hidden in reply to nowster]

🤣🤣🤣🤣😁👍

[GailXrunning]

Ah, Hidden 🙏🙏 That’s what we’re all here for! That’s such great news to hear. Perfect run of laundry non-events came to the rescue too.! The stars definitely aligned for your run today. Look forward to hearing of your progress. As you say, the sense of purpose (the structure, the advice, the corny chat, the assembling of those satisfying red ticks) does such a lot. It’s weird how effective the virtual coach can be. Sceptically, I imagined I’d just duck out of the harder bits, but, no, I do try to show my coach that I’m trying. To be clear, I have overdone it on some of those speed intervals, and could barely keep going - especially when I started out - not exactly showing the world my ‘very best controlled effort’ and ‘smile’!😂

[Hidden in reply to GailXrunning]

I can recall on one of your posts a few months back you mentioning what a great feeling it was to tick the runs off.

It was exactly that. Because I had put some actual effort into my run I couldn't wait to get home to get the tick 😀😀😀

[GailXrunning in reply to Hidden]

Haha! That tick-progress alone makes me feel years (oops, ‘decades’) younger. Win-win-win!😂✅✔️☑️

[Sunnytom Graduate10]

Well done you. I find it so much better when I have a plan to follow x

[Hidden in reply to Sunnytom]

I must admit to enjoying my freedom and running whatever and whenever I pleased. However, it did lead to a gradual decline in both enthusiasm, effort and determination. Now I have plan again, I am putting more effort in and will hopefully reap the rewards. Wooo. 👍

[Yesletsgo Administrator Graduate10]

Congratulations on your frosty fartlek Ah, the old sniff test, if anyone asks you, you're saving the environment by reducing the energy used in washing.

Glad you're enjoying the plan, remember though that you have to take it easy on the recovery runs lol