Poor choices.... W9 R2 aka The Big Melt

[Sofargoner]

Today was my w9 r2 outing and I had to do an errand the other direction from my usual park. Right until the last possible moment I couldn't decide to stick to what I knew or try a new park and route. I went for the new park as it's full of trees and trails and I thought the change might do me good.

Big mistake.....!

First up, I DID complete the run but I wanted to do a better pace and longer distance. Except that I chose the Mount Everest of runs (I exaggerate, but to someone of my fitness and run stature, it may as well have been).

I went up two hills, still running, not stopping, but sweating profusely, so when faced with a third I turned round and went for a descent. The remainder of the run was ....sweaty. I had worn a scarf and that was now wet so I took it off then didn't really know what to do with it, ran with it flailing about, affecting my aerodynamic profile (ha ha)

Why didn't I just stay on my wee route that I know....

I had aimed to try and run an extra five minutes today, just to see if I could, for potential parkrun purposes, but I couldn't, I was too hot. All muscles are fine but now after a hot shower my muscles feel ...stretched (in a good way), around the glutes.

My feedback to any W8-ers is not to change routes to radically different parks in week 9. I'll go back to my gentle incline the next flat route for my graduation run!

Re a Christmas Eve parkrun.....as my pace is around 11mins a km, I don't think I am there yet. I have checked the finish times of the one I have registered for, but the slowest times this weekend were around the 40-45 min mark. I can't bear the humiliating thought of being ten mins after them!

[Davoda Graduate]

Those hills have just built your stamina! 😀 Well done for running them.

Enjoy your graduation run, those two hills probably mean you'll go further in it than you would have.

[AnneDroid Graduate]

I still think there's a real gap in the market for someone with a minibus to drive runners like us to the top of hills and let us out so we can run like the wind all the way down.

[CaminoPilgrim Graduate in reply to AnneDroid]

That's a great idea!

[McFitty Graduate]

Hills...meh. Sweat...meh. Sofargoner has only ONE MORE RUN until those pom poms come out! Your pace is nigh on identical to mine at week 9. You will naturally get faster. Slowly does it

[Sofargoner Graduate in reply to McFitty]

what would you say your pace is now ie can I expect to improve much?

[McFitty Graduate in reply to Sofargoner]

Right now it's probably totally poo! But since I graduated (with a commendable 2.9k) 😂 it crept slowly down from eleven or twelve to around nine. I get sixes and sevens with the wind behind me! But generally around 9 is my 'comfortable shuffle'

[Ullyrunner Graduate]

Well done - those hills are the devil aren't they!

[Oldfloss Administrator Graduate]

Hills... we love them, don't we I remember a post i wrote last year... requesting a huge iron, because every route I did had an incline!!!! I honesty think, the road did rise up to meet me!

Well done you.. as Davoda says... stamina building... and character building too

[ClarePB Graduate]

You can run uphill! That is so impressive!! I live in a super-flat part of the country and I really notice even the tiniest bit of evolution change from running along by the river, I can only crawl until I'm on the flat again.