Glorious morning.
Blue skies, red/orange/yellow trees. 13C.
Minion running outfit on. MJ jabbering away at me. My new Spotify C25K RUN playlist selected and off we went. W8R2
There is one particular song that sets my pace and even if it does not come on then I can do the opening beat in my head and that then sets my pace for the joffle.
My legs were fine as I was at the halfway turnback sign but, with Oldfloss and IannodaTruffe like naughty schoolkids pushing me to the front when the teacher asks who's next, I went past the sign and carried on. Time to see what is beyond the sign and in the next village.
I'll tell you what there is. A bloody big steep hill. A block and tackle, abseil down, rope to get up kind of a hill!
I may have slightly exaggerated there but the thought of running all the way down and then all the way back up wasnt quite what I had in mind.
But even so, despite the extra 30 meters I had ran past the sign I was still further back along the normal route before the ding a ling and MJ telling me 'Well done! You're doing great. You may be tempted to speed up right now....'. I can assure you I wasnt. I also let MJ know this in the hope he may remember it for my next run.
But here is the really weird thing.
I am on W8R2 so have been out on that track along the forest quite a few times now but this was the first time I ever had experienced this.
I couldn't feel my legs!
I dont mean they were numb and I was having to crawl (that was week 2!!). No, what I mean was I was joffling along in the glorious weather looking at the deer in the fields and the coulrs of the forest when I realised that my legs were just , well, sort of doing it on their own. It was as if the top half of my body was separate from the bottom half. It was as if I was getting a piggy back and it wasnt me having to do the work.
It really was the most bizarre feeling.
As I reached the asphalt and the final stretch to the car, the song that came on next on my new playlist was that old 80's tune 'It aint what you do (its the way that you do it)' by Fun Boy 3 and Bananarama (its an eclectic playlist!)
The last sentence of the song came was literally just as MJ was telling me to get ready to start slowing down (could I be any slower?!) and the lyrics were 'it aint what you do its the way that you do it...and thats what gets results'.
And I thought 'YES!' It is what I am doing and it is showing results.
But I still had about 45 seconds to run and then the next song started.
Those opening chords and I knew I wasnt stopping at 28 minutes. Not today Sir. No Siree.
Born Slippy - Underworld. Oh yes
I have seen lots of posts from very knowledgeable people saying that to increase a run by 10% is ok now and then. So 10% of 28 minutes would take me to 30 minutes and still be within the 10%.
Ran for 30 minutes today. Hell yeah. Get me