Having driven back from Rugby in the UK, to my home near Blois in France on Wednesday, I felt a bit tired on my planned running day Thursday, so decided to postpone my run until today Friday. It was a little foggy when I looked out of the kitchen window this morning, but dry, and surprisingly mild.
During my Christmas week in the UK I'd been running around Draycote Water every other day, which is just under 8km. I've been running mainly using the Audiofuel Polyrunner 160 bpm 1 hour track. My times were a little longer than normal. That is no surprise though as the circuit around Draycote Water has more gradients than does my normal run along the banks of the Loire.
15 minutes into my run things were obviously different to a week ago. I was feeling, well, not exactly out of breath, but my breathing didn't feel so easy as normal. This means one of two things. Either my aerobic fitness has dropped off, or I'm running harder than normal. Clearly fitness should not have reduced, as I'd been running slightly more than normal last week. So without realising it, I must be running faster. It did feel like my stride was a bit longer than normal. The cadence was normal as I was running to C25K+ stamina, as I normally do on short runs.
As the run progressed, breathing didn't get any harder. It settled down nicely. This felt like a good run. C25K+ Stamina is 35 minutes long, and I could tell that if I turned around at my usual point then I would arrive at my normal stopping place early, so I extended the run a little way. In the end it worked out very nicely, with Laura telling me to slow down for my warm down walk in exactly the place I like to stop.
So I told Mr Garmin that I'd finished my run, and he piped up to tell me I had a new PB for 5km of 28.11.
Now that is only about 30 seconds off the 5km PB I ran in August, but it was a nice enjoyable run, and a PB is always pleasing to see :O)
Happy Running everyone :O)