Yo dudes!
What a spiffingly glorious sunny day here in London! Most conducive to getting my rather pert bottom squeezed into my compression shorts and getting out the door for a delicious run. Having awoken at 10am after a very restless sleep, I did some glute stretches and squeezed my veg in the juicer before donning my Ray Bans (fake ones) and shouting "See you later sweetie pie" to Mrs Dan. This is my 2nd run of the week and I've been lucky to avoid the dark, dreary rainy windy days, one of which was yesterday (New Years Day) which was HIDEOUS! Yucksville Arizona!
I'd decided to try yet another route variation, this time keeping along the Thames path from Richmond Bridge along the river towards Twickenham. I'd never been down here before and it was sooooo exciting! Dunno why really? Probably because I was in my running clobber, on my own and listening to some proper rock music in my head whilst the sun shone. The river looked sooo beautiful. I wanted to stop and take a picture.....but I didn;t want to interrupt my flow, so decided not to! Sorry.
The first 2K's were easy, mainly because I was running in new territory with different vistas and it took my mind off feeling anything negative. I turned right into Marble Hill Park on my 3rd K and powered through the gardens. Lots of folk were out in the sunny weather and very sweetly got the hell out of my way when I huffed and puffed past them. Thanks guys, 'ppreciate it!
I reached the road. "Oh sh**!" I thought. "I'm lost. Which way?" I decided to go right. I'm glad I did too cos I wasn't really lost, and before too long I reached Richmond Bridge where I'd crossed earlier and headed back down to the river path. The 4th K was faster and now for the final lap. I was determined to make this the fastest one and thanks to a 1981 heavy rock record by Bernie Marsden (ex Whitesnake) which was giving it large in my head, I picked up speed and was reeeeally travelling to this fantastic rock song. I mean, I wasn't jogging - I WAS RUNNING. Really fast too! Wheeeeeeeeeeooooooooooooo!!!! The track finished in my headphones and I slowed down a wee bit until Endomondo announced I'd run 5K. But I didn't stop. Oh no. I kept on running. I decided to see if I could run another half a K as I didn't want to go too mad and injure myself. I did it too! I have always stopped running at exactly 5K as I cannot go another inch, but today I felt like I could. I may just set myself the mini goal of running 6K by the end of the month. Summink to aim for eh?
Got home and double checked my time - 5K in 31 mins. Longer than two days ago but what the hell?! Only 40 secs longer but todays weather and conditions were so beautiful I enjoyed every single step. Hooray!
For anyone out there thinking "I'm gonna start running in 2014" - do this C25K programme. It's a tough time of year to start, but in just 9 short weeks you'll be running for half an hour non stop and getting endorphine rushes which will make you smile for a week!
Olé!
Dan
