Mid-week Training

I’ve been a bit lax blog-wise the last couple of days, so here’s a summary of my training since the Centurion GP.

The more I mull it over, the more disappointed I am with Sunday’s race. I can’t understand how, when I felt so much better, I was much slower! It was only 21 seconds slower than in Coventry, but it felt like a PB performance!

Perhaps that was in the back of my mind when I hauled myself out on Tuesday evening. I really didn’t feel much like running, or being out for over an hour. Perhaps also, it was why I chose a run which meant two loops of a ‘lollipop’ shaped route. Was I subconsciously leaving myself an escape route? I opted to go through a park rather than go round it on the roads – no difference in distance, but a nicer environment and the hill is spread out a bit. Trouble was it hadn’t occurred to me that it would be pitch black! I fell off the path a couple of times and nearly ran into a dog walker. A little while later I took a wrong turn which lopped half a mile off my first lap. Surely this at least was a pure mistake, but I wasn’t too upset about it. By the time I got to the start of the ‘lollipop head’ though I’d had enough, so headed back down the ‘lollipop stick’ home. Seven miles had become 3.8!

I was feeling better on Wednesday when my running buddy Joe called round for our regular Wednesday run. We’ve been doing the same route every almost week for quite some time, and we usually go clockwise as Joe has a small psychological problem with doing it anti-clockwise. There’s a hill toward the end when we go clockwise, but anticlockwise the hill is right in the middle. Joe says he doesn’t like the feeling of having done the hardest part but still having half the run still to go. I’ve tried to tell him to try and turn it around and think of it as having got the hard part out of the way so he can enjoy the rest. It doesn’t work! Still, we went anticlockwise this time, and after the hill I noticed that Joe was breathing quite heavily. I then realised, checking my watch, that I’d unintentionally been dragging him along at a higher pace than usual early on, so we were both sweating and panting by the end. I imagine my subconscious was at work again, trying to make up for Tuesdays poor performance. We agreed it was a good session though, especially as it was our fastest anticlockwise run in several months, if not ever!

Today my mind was playing a different game. All day long at work I kept thinking about how I was behind on training miles this week and needed to put in a longer run this evening, so that I could then rest Friday and Saturday to be ready for ‘Not the Roman IX’ on Sunday. All day long I was rather dreading it! I cleared my desk a bit early though, and headed home determined to hit the road. I tried not to think about what I was doing, just got changed and got out of the door and started running. I had at least decided on an eight mile route that gave me no escape option! Once I was running though, I felt great. I was taking it easy but the miles seemed to flow by effortlessly. I averaged about 7:45 to 7:50 minutes per mile and it felt really comfortable.

Now I’m really looking forward to Sunday, although I know I’ll enjoy Saturday morning at Cannon Hill parkun.