W9R1: Hard going in the damp

[nowster]

Time: 7.15am Weather: 14°C, cloudy, very damp, no wind

Harder than expected after the previous run.

My bladder got me up at 6.45am. Seeing how I'm up I might as well go out.

It had hammered it down with rain overnight and had also rained an hour or so before I stepped out. Cool and very damp, and not a breath of wind. Not what I'd have thought would be bad weather for running, but it did seem a lot harder today than it had been on Friday. Maybe less sleep than usual, maybe eating late, maybe the bottle of strong ale I had yesterday evening?

There were fewer slugs out there this morning but I did dodge a fair few snails. Traffic was pretty much non-existent, as you'd expect of a Sunday morning.

The course was the "out and back" one I keep returning to which I've been using since the first weeks. I did deliberately start slow (for me). My watch was saying 7½min/km when I looked at it. I then naturally sped up a bit as my muscles loosened up.

Needless to say I got further today than I did when I ran this run on W8R1.

I did get the threat of a stitch about the half way mark, but fought it off.

I felt myself flagging near the end so made a deliberate effort to speed up, almost reaching a 6min/km pace in the last two minutes.

This was a hard run and my leg muscles are still moaning nearly three hours later. Apart from the final minutes, my intention was to take it steadily. Not a fast run, but (which surprised me) one I did at my usual average pace.

Stats:

Distance: 4.73km running, 5.80km overall.

Pace (running): 6'21"/km. Splits (by km): 6'22", 6'29", 6'25", 6'15", 6'10"/km

Top speed: 11.3km/h, 5'18"/km (possibly a GPS glitch)

~~~

Today I was mostly listening to a comedy podcast:

No Such Thing As A Fish, by the QI Elves

nosuchthingasafish.com/

[Instructor57 Graduate]

Nice one ! 👍

Almost there !

Looking forward to Thursday's post 😁

[BexJogs Graduate]

No such thing as a fish is my favourite podcast! Great choice! I’ve been running to music since the long runs started but I think I’ll try out podcasts again post graduation. Sounds like a good run despite the title of your post, especially the pace! Can’t believe we graduate this week!!

[nowster Graduate in reply to BexJogs]

The hard ones set you up to make the later ones easier. I'm looking at doing my long gradual downhill route on graduation day to pick up a bit of pace, even if it does mean I have a long walk back.

[Jools2020 Graduate]

Well done! First Week 9 run under your belt and heading towards graduation 👏👏👏👍