I actually lost sleep over this last night. I had a dream that I quit before the finish and woke up in a cold sweat! I spent a good 30 minutes awake in bed ruminating the best way to go about this before finally getting up and out there.
Lovely, if chilly, morning in North Wales today so I started out positively thinking about the 5+ minutes I had achieved off my own back at the end of W3R3. I CAN do this!!
The first two runs felt wonderful. I found a nice steady rhythm; no niggles from my left leg (could it be that it's finally getting used to this running malarky??) and the first 5 minute run was a real pleasure. I even did the last 60 seconds of it up a hill!!
I honestly could have carried on but Laura says walk so I behaved myself and did as she commanded. So then Laura starts to talk about stitches. I haven't had a glimmer of any such thing but then sure enough, as soon as she mentioned it, that evill fella Mr Stitchy started to rear his ugly head. Not painful but I was aware of something. It's not unknown for me to be somewhat psychosamatic in my aches and pains so I completely blame Laura for my stitch!!
So onto the last 5 minute run. Legs felt good, I had plenty of breath and the niggly stitch had disappeared - out of sight out of mind I guess. Everything was going well until Laura informed me there was still 2 minutes to go. It's as if my bodyswitch went straight to off. Everything started to become a real effort and by the last minute the legs were like lead, I was gasping for air and my head was rolling so much I could have been a dead ringer for Paula Radcliffe - only about 1:43729438274327th of the speed!! But if W3 taught me one thing it's mind over matter and I pushed and pushed on, finally completing the last minute which may as well have been an hour!!
4.6k done even with that last minutes snail pace. I know I can get faster so aiming to get close to 5k by R3 on Wednesday. Exhausted, but happy and so bloody proud of myself. There's no way on earth I could have imagined I could run that much just a few weeks ago. Cannot wait for Monday's run now.
Happy weekend running everybody!!!