I’ve had this run going round my head since I ran it this morning. I’ve been trying to come up a sensible run report but so much of my headspace was taken up with “just hang on!!!!” that I’m not quite sure what to say about it! Let’s see what comes out…
I’m back on the NRC HM plan (waves at the others doing this too 👋!!) and this morning I had an hour long window to fit in a run before Pilates. That meant exploring the area around the leisure centre and starting at 9.30am. Not ideal because I’ve never been beyond the car park on foot and it was already pretty hot. Still, some friends has briefed me on how to find an abandoned air field and I was in an adventurous mood. From the options available, “Tempo with Emily Infield” looked the best.
Five minutes walk took me out of the multi storey (I don’t think I’ve ever started a run from one before-an usual first!) and past the leisure centre. After a bit of a diversion past some bus stops and a load of industrial bins, I found the path to the airfield. I don’t know how I hadn’t realised that it would be flat, but that made a nice change from my recent hilly runs. Not an inch of shade though. I started the guided run and gently pootled through the seven minute running warm up. It was already hot and the feelings of apprehension were building.
I often find I’m not quite warmed up after the official warm ups of the speed runs. Today was no exception but I didn’t really have time to do my usual extension. Starting the tempo section still in the toxic ten wasn’t ideal but needs must! After some quick dynamic stretches in front of someone’s garden, it was time to start.
Coach B instructed me to aim for a 5 or 6/10 effort, somewhere between 10k and half marathon pace so I gave it my best. Time to get comfortable with being comfortable. Finding “uncomfortable” wasn’t too hard. Still warming up, nothing felt like it was flowing and since I’d now run out of runway, I needed to look for where to go next. Spotting a small lane off to the side, I adjusted my flight path.
Usually, I’m pretty good at distracting myself but today was hard! It was hot. It felt tough. The time check reminders didn’t feel helpful. When the announcement that I only had nineteen minutes to go came, I think I went through the first few of the five stages of grief…denial that that could be right, anger that Coach B was asking me to do such a ridiculous run and bargaining that I’d just keep going until I’d run twenty minutes in total. That would only be thirteen minutes of tempo and thought was enough to keep me going!
A few minutes later, I finally felt like I had hit my stride. It wasn’t a stride that I liked but I was confident I could keep holding it until my revised target came up. I decided to focus on staying at that pace until the run ended and seeing how consistent I could get my stats to be. Usually I speed up as I warm up but I knew the challenge today would be not to slow down.
Almost as if he was reading my mind, Coach B popped up to tell me not to back off in the third quarter of the run. I’d felt my focus drifting away from the run. Usually that’s the enjoyable part of going for a run for me-enjoying the scenery but at this point I was running alongside a dual carriageway with industrial units and fly tipping so sitting with my own thoughts about the run was probably good practice. It had got really tough-it was so hot and I was getting mentally tired. Again, I had a little tantrum with myself about the horribleness of this run and questioning all my life choices. That perked me up an bit and I’d decided that I could make it to twenty minutes of tempo and then stop.
Luckily, my improvised route looped back to airfield and along another path that I hadn’t seen before. That was shaded and much needed respite from the sun. Twenty minutes came up and the last five seemed achievable. Why not just go for it? It seemed daft not to try and then there were only three minutes, then two minutes, then one minute and it was all done. Phew. That was one of the toughest runs I’ve done for a while. I’d forgotten about the relentlessness of tempo runs and I was so proud of myself for getting to the end. Looking at my stats, the period where I was trying to run at the same pace was ultra consistent with only a ten second range between the slowest and fastest km. Amazingly, despite not knowing where I was for most of the run, I finished thirty seconds from my car so I could grab my water bottle and enjoy the cool down walk with a drink. I walked part of my run route and spotted some lovely posts alongside the path (pictured). It really was a lovely view when I was ready to appreciate it!
Much as I hated it at the time, looking back, it was quite fun! Sort of.
