Just Go Out And Run

I can’t remember why I was so dithery this morning. 

Perhaps I was discombobulated by the clocks going forward. That always gives me a funny sort of jet lag, and I often spend the whole day yawning, however long I have slept.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that the two older grandsons would be descending for the day and night tomorrow and I was worrying about how to keep them entertained, what with the weather taking a turn for the wet and blustery.

More likely it was because I couldn’t decide on the type of run to do. Already, because of said clocks, I had missed out on the Sunday club run, which would have made it a trail run with long intervals, as I’m busy trying to keep the back of the pack in sight. That felt, given my long run on Wednesday, and my hill reps on Friday, a little too much of a stretch even if I had woken up in time. So, should I do a small, slow trail run at home? Or should I just do my usual road loop.

‘Just go out and run,’ said Anne, with only a touch of an eye roll.

So, I put my kit on to do just that, without putting my trainers on as I hadn’t quite made up my mind on the terrain. Then as I got downstairs, I realised I should probably do my weights routine either before or after my run so that Monday was clear for the boys. Before or after?

It’s a wonder, sometimes, that I can get out of bed, with all these crucial decisions that I have to make.

After scratching my head for just a nano-second I opted for before. Weights, to me, are more onerous than running, so if I’m a bit tired after my run, I’m more likely to miss them out. Running on tired legs, on the other hand, doesn’t feel like a problem especially if it’s a shortish easy run which it now was, because I was plumping for the road.

I know that I have the Llangollen Fell Race in two weeks’ time, so I should probably get more off-road time, and more hill time. But I’m assured (fingers crossed) that it’s more trail than fell, so while I have done a fair bit more off-road stuff this year, I’m hoping that my slowly building stamina, with my long runs, will get me through it.

I did manage a long run of fourteen and a bit miles this week, which is the first time I’ve been over a half marathon distance in quite some time. The last few miles were really tiring and then I was hammered with hail stones for a few minutes: two good reasons not to push on to the hoped for fifteen miles. 

Colin asked me yesterday at Parkrun why I was doing such long runs. My marathon isn’t until September so it’s not necessary in one way. But I know my usual marathon fail is to get up to a certain point in the race and then hit a point of such fatigue that I’m having a little internal sob while I’m walk/jogging the final few miles. The only time this hasn’t happened was for York, when for a good two months before, I was racking up weekly mileage in the late twenties and dipping into the thirties with several long runs along the way. It still wasn’t hugely fast but it was the least painful marathon by far.

And so, I thought that if I can keep a current mileage of around thirty miles a week most weeks from now, and practise my super long runs every two weeks, so slowly get to eighteen every now and then, before I begin marathon training, then maybe, just maybe I can get below five hours. Of course, that means I’ve got to keep the weights up so I don’t get injured, and I think I need to do the super long runs with some conscious jeffing (currently I’m doing 1 minute walk for every 5K to roughly match up to the Loch Ness water station spacings), as I know that helps me. 

I am perhaps overthinking things. Today was one of those days where I just needed to ‘just go out and run’ in order to get the get the weekly mileage into my range. It began a bit slow and sluggish and ended up feeling nice and bouncy. Now to have a rest day minding a four and nearly seven-year-old…