First of all, yet me again apologise that I have not updated my blog all week; for the life of me I cannot fathom out why I cannot get a few minutes together of an evening to update this thing. I guess life really does get in the way sometimes. Oh well, I'm here now so on we go:Monday: Not much to report for today, I did a shorter morning run as Monday's a nursery day so I have to get the boys ready to get out the door by 7.25am so a long run is not really feasible. Felt pretty tired all day but think that was just the weekend catching up with me.
Tuesday: No nursery today so I did the longer run that I discovered last week. At least today I knew exactly where I was going and it really is a very nice run. Took me just under 45 minutes so I do think it probably is around 4 miles as there is a very stinky uphill climb about a third of the way in which does slow me down somewhat. The club run tonight was a 'race' of sorts. It's called the 'Heddington Hill Climb' and basically it's a mile climb up the side of what, to me, felt like the alps. However, it actually starts off in a small village called Heddington and goes up towards Roundway Down (where a famous battle took place in 1643). It is a steep climb and, quite frankly, it was bloody hard work. There was eleven of us in total and I came in ninth ....... sounds not so bad until I admit to you that the tenth and eleventh placed runners won't be seeing their 70th birthdays again! Here is a link so you can see the elevation details. My stats are:
Time: 10:56
You can see how I struggle with hills as at the Corsham 10k I must've been averaging 9 minute miles to complete in the time so by adding a hill I am 2 minutes slower. Guess I must try harder (oh, and that is a photo of Roundway Down at the top of this post).
Wednesday: Weather this week has been atrocious but I still struggled out of bed at 5.30am so that I could do the longer run again. The rain was lashing, the wind was howling but off I set. Ran about 200 metres and realised the dog wasn't behind me. Called him but no sign. Retraced my steps and found him huddling on the front door step; so much for vicious Staffies, the dog is a bloody wimp. Still, I enjoyed the run even if he didn't want to go. The rain does make the going pretty horrid underfoot as most of the run is across grass fields. I can't imagine my trainers are going to last much longer with the soaking they receive every day, I am just waiting for the glue to give up hold!
Thursday: Shorter run this morning as it's intervals at the club once again. The dog decided to join me today and you could tell he hadn't been out the day before as he was full of running. Intervals tonight consisted of 8 x 2 minute runs around the field. We all started together, the trainer blew the whistle and off we set. The idea was to get as far as possible in two minutes. Then a minute's rest and back to the start with the aim of getting there within the two minutes. A minute's rest and then rinse and repeat for another three times. Again the idea on the second and subsequent runs was to get as far as you had on the first run but I'm afraid I didn't manage it; I stopped around 20 yards short on my second run and then another 20 yards short between my second and third runs. On my fourth run I did get as far as I did in my third attempt! Again, something I found really difficult, I have absolutely no speed to speak of and I just cannot seem to persuade my body to keep up the pace. However, on the last leg of the last run I was advised to treat it as though it was the finish sprint to a race and to run it as fast as I possibly could. I took the advice seriously and literally gave it my all and was amazed to be told by the trainer that I completed the last leg 25 seconds faster than on the run out!
Friday: Although today was a nursery day I thought I would risk doing the longer run again as the weather was actually pretty nice and I thought I ought to make the most of it. The dog did agree to run with me although in some ways I wish he hadn't as he was a pain throughout. The run is all off-road and I guess because of the time of day it is there is loads of wildlife around. This mostly consists of deer, pheasants and rabbits all of which Rommel enjoys chasing. He kept disappearing into the fields after something or other and because he was constantly out of sight I had to keep stopping to ensure he could find me / catch up again. This made the run very stop / start and consequently it was not that enjoyable. The down side of taking the dog on all these runs is how fit he is getting; only a few weeks ago it was all he could do to keep up with me, he certainly didn't have any excess energy to run after anything!
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