Since my last run I've had an utterly fantastic time. First we went to Sardinia for a few days then we flew on to Greece to stay with my sister for a couple of weeks. I appreciate how lucky I am to be in a position to do this and am truly grateful for my good fortune.
We haven't been running for a week. Yesterday evening, after a busy day travelling, I said to my husband that we should run today. When I woke up I wasn't so enthusiastic but luckily he was. I started to get dressed in my running clothes, only to find I'd left my sports bra behind somewhere. Oops. As we were going for a swim afterwards I decided to wear my bikini top instead.
(Gentlemen, this bit isn't really for you so please avert your eyes for the next paragraph)
The ladies among you will realise that having the correct underpinnings is extremely important to comfort. My bikini is old. It's a bit big for me as I've lost weight since I got it 15+ years ago. The cup liners in the top have been lost over the years as well. In short, not much support. I'm not an energetic swimmer so this has never been an issue and I can't be bothered to buy a new one as I wear it so rarely. I was a bit worried setting out that the bouncing might be too much, and visualised running whilst having to hold the girls in place. In the event it seems I must have lost weight up top too as there was no discomfort. I don't know whether to be relieved or sad. Nope, I do know actually, definitely relieved.
As we set off from the house my Garmin watch didn't pick up a GPS signal. It still hadn't started working when we got to the place we end our warm up walk. I started NRC to track the distance, and a couple of hundred yards later the Garmin buzzed into life. This meant that the distance it tracked was a bit less than NRC's, 2.98 vs 3.09 km.
I'd forgotten how hilly it is here. After a downward slope to the main road by the waterfront (where there's a beach where we left our towels) the route goes uphill, gently but noticeably. It was over 20C so I wasn't pushing it. After a while the slope went down, then up, then down etc total ascent 49m.
After 1.5km we turned back towards the beach. NRC told me I'd completed my goal of 3km just before the steps down to the water. My husband took his shoes and shirt off and dived off the end of the pier (we know that the water is deep enough to do this safely, we've been here lots of times).
I got undressed a bit more slowly and waded in as befits an old granny. Oh, it was wonderful, just the right side of bracing.
When I got home I looked at the charts on the Garmin Connect App. Where we normally run is very flat so it was fun to correlate the hills with my pace and heartrate. I was surprised, my HR was pretty steady throughout, below the rate at home, and I managed most of the run in Zone 4 instead of my usual Zone 5. My VO2 has improved and according to that nice Mr Garmin I'm now 18 years younger than my chronological age. I'd call that a pretty good bounce back to form!
Playing in the zones on a slow 5k 😊
