Yorkshire MT – Week 5

I had a good week of training last week but I didn’t space it out very well. My aim was to have a rest day on Wednesday and cycle with PROBs (Pensby Runners On Bikes) on Thursday, but Thursday came and went, and the only reason I didn’t go was that I was getting to the last hundred pages of a book. A really fair weather excuse you might say but the weather did turn out to be fair.

It wasn’t laziness, but an acknowledgement that I needed to encourage my reading stamina. Having had a childhood where a book needed to be peeled off in order to interact with me, my later adult years have seen an increasingly flighty mind, probably in correlation with the rise of t’internet and social media. More so now, that I’m getting on a bit, and hitting ‘the change’. So I think, if I get a yen for it every now and then, this reading habit needs to be encouraged.

Therefore, after having two good 7+ milers on Monday and Tuesday, resting on Wednesday and, err … Thursday, I had a massage booked on Friday morning, and so it was not until Saturday when I got off my backside again.

But what a way to resume my efforts.

The fact that it was properly raining all morning probably helped me, as the 1.5 mile don’t-get-cold up that Gary and I did before the Parkrun, must have got a bit of blood pumping inside of me, even though I couldn’t feel it on the outside. I was soaked on the starting line, and it didn’t help that I was wearing my zip up hoodie that was completely un-waterproof and weighing me down. My shoes were seriously waterlogged as well. But, when I heard the barely audible 3 .. 2 .. 1 .. Go, my legs began to turn over at rate of knots  (an apt mariner’s idiom I think, given the lack of dry land). I have no idea why it happens sometimes, but it is a great feeling if you can keep it up for the distance. In my head, I was Roadrunner (might only be a reference for oldies) getting ahead of Wile E. Coyote, and I just felt my lungs were in sync. At least for the first couple of miles. I did feel that incline in the final mile but I managed to hold on to get a course PB (27:11) that was one second off my all-time Parkrun PB.

To be fair, I would probably have to knock off a good five or ten seconds to match my fitness, back in the summer of 2015, as the Princes Park Parkrun in Liverpool is three twisty and slightly more hilly laps. But I’m getting there, even if I am getting on a bit, and I ran through the finish line like a champion!

So this is what I mean about spacing. Three full days of nada and then two hard sessions in two days. My long run, which I suppose I should have done on Thursday, after the book was finished, was on the Sunday. Luckily, I had found out from John, the day before that he was planning a long run too, and I decided to geg in*. The weather on the Sunday, was nothing like the previous day, and as I jogged the 2.5 miles to John’s place, I could feel a little stiffness in my quads. But, I was sporting my new trail vest, so I had some water and food in the pockets, and I just relaxed into a nice slow trot, and the stiffness, gradually subsided.

It was good to have a change of route and companionship on this long run. The miles tick off more easily when you are chatting away, and it also acts as a good pace gauger – if I couldn’t chat easily then I was going too fast. People were out, eating ice cream, and enjoying the sun, and it felt like a dreamy Sunday. What we didn’t realise at the time, was that if we’d gone to the tip of New Brighton, by Fort Perch Rock, we’d have been met by scores of Police, as a man’s body had just been dragged out of the River Mersey. Luckily, at the time, we were oblivious to it all, and turned back before that point.

By the time we got back close to John he peeled off to add a little more but I was close to 15 miles. Once I hit it, I walked the 2.5 miles back home. My calves felt very heavy and achy but the rest of me was pretty good. I downed some chocolate milk and a packet of salted crisps as soon as I got home, and pretty soon after, had some lovely fish pie from the night before. No re-occurrence of the headache, thankfully, even though I had a couple of glasses of wine that night, and after a few pigeon poses and downward dogs, my calves calmed down too.

* geg in – colloquial term from Liverpool, meaning: to join in, uninvited.

 My Week’s Round Up.

Day	What I Did
Mon	Slow but long ish, to keep that stamina up. Run: 7.01 miles [11.28 km] Pace: 11.57 mins/mile [7.19 mins/km]   Yoga: 30 minutes Strength: 20 minutes
Tue	Yoga 30 minutes   Club Handicap – 7 miler Having got ridiculously lost the last time I did this, I was better prepared, by taking Google’s little person for a walk along the bits I went wrong on. I did a mile or so’s warm up before driving to the club – that’s how seriously I’m taking it! Plus, for the first couple of miles, I had company with a new Pensby member, Steve, who didn’t know the route, and stayed with me until I was overtaken by Wendy, after which I stopped to take a few photos along the way – maybe not as seriously as I should have.   Warm up Run: 1.24 miles [2 km]   Run: 7.07 miles [11.38 km] Pace: 10.13 mm [6.29 m/km]
Wed	Nothing
Thu	Reading
Fri	Leg massage – and then nothing.
Sat	Parkrun Warm Up Run: 1.5 miles [2.4 km]   Run: 3.16 miles [5.08 km] Pace: 8.36 mm [5.19 m/km]
Sun	Long Slow Run Run: 15.04 miles [24.2 km] (+ a 2.5 mile walk) Pace: 12.20 mm [7.58 m/km]