Hi all!
It has been a good week of running and here is the low down:
Wednesday - 16km - 1:32:37
I have entered the Southend Half Marathon which is on 8th June. This was my first distance run as part of my training and it was at a faster pace than I usually run them. I used an energy gel half way through for the first time and it helped.
Thursday - 2km & C25K W4R1
I have convinced three friends to start C25K recently, one of them has attempted week 4 twice and abandoned the run because he was too tired by the last interval. My assumption was that he was running too fast so I offered to pace him through one of the runs. I ran the 2km to his house and then joined him for the run. We ran between 6:30 and 6min/km pace for the first 3 running intervals and then ran the last one faster. So much so that we didn't realise that the 5 mins were over and managed to run a km in 5:36. That gave my friend a lot more confidence and it was my good deed for the day.
Saturday - Parkrun - 25:07 & C25K W4R2
I ran Parkrun within myself because I knew that I had a hard run today. My aim was 25 mins and I had to reign myself in because I could see people ahead of me that I could normally beat and sub-consciously I started to run faster. I got to the finishing straight and only had 30 seconds to finish if I wanted a 25 min time. I sprinted to the finish and was a few seconds over my aim, but it was a good finish. My friend lives a few minutes from the park and joined me afterwards so we could run W4R2 together. It was actually a very good warm down for me and after running together twice he feels like he can complete the course now.
Sunday - Junior Parkrun - 2km - 19:10
It was my 4 year old daughter 3rd junior parkrun and she has made big gains each week. She is very excited each Sunday morning to go running and it is fun for me too. I tried a new tactic today and I used the cones that are used to mark the course as targets for Hafsa. I raced her to each cone and she managed to beat me each time! I kept talking to her the whole way around to keep her motivated and I think she ran over half the course this week and ran almost 2 mins faster than last week. She was delighted as was her Papa!
Sunday - 10km - 49:56
I drove Hafsa home from the Parkrun and went out for my training run. I told her during the drive home that I was doing a 10km run and she asked if she could join me because 10 wasn't a lot more than 2!
My calfs were still tight from the 16km on Tuesday but I wanted to do the run and warmed up well before starting. I had my running belt on because I wanted to practice using the energy gel again and drinking water whilst running at a faster pace. My aim was to run each km between 4:45 and 5:05 min/km pace and to be honest I was never going to run much faster than 5 min/km pace. I had to push myself throughout the run because this was definitely outside my comfort zone. I had the gel at the 5km point and felt the effects after a few minutes. When I got to the 8km mark my legs were getting heavy and I was flagging but a sub 50min 10km was close so I dug deep and pushed myself. I got there and was just under 50 mins! I spent a good while warming down and stretching because my calfs were very tight, but I feel OK now.
So altogether a very good week, here is a link today's 10km:
