Happy New Year to all you fab runners!
Another week ticked off and it’s is the end of the first stage of my (cunning) plan. So far, so good: I have run much further than I ever expected and with much less problems than I have had before (*touch wood*).
- Run 1: 50 minutes with fartleks accompanied by Katnap . Legs are getting a bit tired after relatively long mileage these last few weeks but we gave it a good go, running between lamp posts down a long straight road. Managed to get 8km in and tailor it so we ended up at the supermarket to get some bread and olives in for lunch 😋
- Run 2: A sneaky little 2km run to get a New Years Eve Garmin badge! Really didn’t need to do this...
- Run(s) 3: Comprising run to pre-setup as we didn’t get up early enough, 1st parkrun, then run back to get into car as we were a bit late, then run to next parkrun from the car as we were a bit late for that too. Thankfully record numbers at both runs made them a bit late too! Very stressful these New Years Day Doubles, glad we get a good run to shake it off 😆 Definitely earned an extra mince pie for today, or, as it turned out, a G&T at the local 😋
- Run 4: Friday 20 minuter. I got to try out my Aftershokz present outside for the first time. They have to go up quite loud at the gym to block out the external noise but they’re different outside and I had to turn them back down. Wasn’t too sure to begin with but they are definitely growing on me now. This turned out to be a pretty fast run, partly thanks to The Lovely Eggs ‘Don’t Look at Me’ which always gets me going faster.
- Run 5: A case of deja vu as it was pre-setup and parkrun day again! I’m sure I’d only done that a couple of days earlier 🤔 And we ran there and back again 🙄 Back to my normal just under 28 minute parkrun today. I’m getting a bit frustrated with the riverside path as I’m getting a feeling of inertia and slight slippage on it all the way along that’s holding me back. Katnap thinks there may be a bit of a slimy coating on it from the damp (it’s a sort of concrete with small pebbles in it) but he’s not getting the slippage I get, so it’s something I’m doing. I usually wear my old Ghosts so I think I’ll do a test run in my new ones next week to see if makes a difference. May also be my high cadence cos I’m short, small feet, not enough weight to push my feet onto the ground hard enough 🤓 (ok, I’m clutching at straws here)...who knows but I’m getting very curious about it as it’s annoying me, I’m sure I could cut my time if it wasn’t for this.
So, how did it turn into a 5+ run week 🤪? Definitely time for a break methinks - sports massage awaits in Week 6. However, a combination of rest and all this running seems to finally be improving my heart rate and VO2 Max. I haven’t done any big runs but I’ve done a fair bit of mileage these last 5 weeks (just under 143km) which is far more than I’d have expected. These have been timed runs rather than distance and I’ve really enjoyed that. The next stage is the start of the distance runs but I may have to mix it up a bit as the ones I’ve got planned next don’t feel long enough now 😳!
Happy running everyone 😀
