Incentive?

[Beads]

Up and out early again this morning. The incentive for the run was hubby keeping the bed warm (normally he's up and about before me).

I did the same route today that I did last Sunday, just over the 5k (5.03 if we're being pedantic). Last Sunday it was an absolute killer and I realised as I was struggling at the halfway mark that I hadn't had any food before going out. This week I had a cereal bar and was hoping it would be a bit easier. No! Still a struggle!

The first ½k is lovely, it drops about 8m, but that gradual decline really gives me a sense of ease and I settle into the running a lot quicker than my normal 3 or 4 minutes. Then I climb back up and much much more over the next ½k, which isn't too bad although I'm huffing and puffing by the time I get to the top. The rest of the run is flat until about ½k from the end where I drop 37m back to the start. Or so I thought! Looking on map my run at the route details, from about halfway to the final drop it's a slow but steady incline, for just over 1½k it climbs. Only about 17m, which is about 1 in 90 gradient (aka 'flat'), but for some reason it absolutely kills me!

Anyway, I improved on my time from last week. Then it was 33 mins 20 seconds, today 31 minutes 57 seconds. I think I'll stick to this route as a Sunday run, I can use it as a monitoring run to see if I'm improving or not over time.

And the incentive? By the time I got back hubby was downstairs, watching football, bemoaning the fact that the BBC aren't showing the US Grand Prix in all its glory today, just the highlights! He had put my iPod on charge though (I'd had to post it back through the letterbox as the battery was flat when I tried to turn it on at the beginning of the run).