After my disastrous run on Sunday, and with the 10k still looming, I needed a good run on Monday to make myself feel better about the whole thing 🙂

And you know what…that is exactly what I had!

I am sure there is a psychological aspect to this running thing…

OK I know there is, and I know that there are probably hundreds of running blogs out there that explore just that phenomenon! this however isn’t one of them… this is just a report on my awesome run 😀 which nearly went a little pear shaped…but I will come to that…

It was mid afternoon on a bank holiday Monday that had so far been filled with moving boxes from one loft to another, an activity that made me very pleased that I can now lift heavy things above my head. I decided to head down to Southwater and run along the downs link path.

For an added bit of variety I headed the opposite way to normal and ran towards (and in fact all the way to) Christs Hospital, another local village that houses a private school of some repute.

I was still using the Run Coach app with its longer overall runs but shorter intervals. This run was a combination of 3 x 6 min intervals followed by 4 x 7 min intervals separated by 1 min walks. I surprised myself by completing all of the 6 min runs without walking when I shouldn’t! I felt awful in the first two, breathing felt difficult and my legs hurt, but by the third one I used the trick I used when I was starting, of breathing in for a set number of paces and out for a set number of paces…it seemed to work.

 

Or something seemed to work anyway because my breathing sorted its self out, my legs just accepted things and I carried on!

about half way through the first 7 min interval I had to turn around, and decided to take a couple of pics which constituted a walk break and I did carry on and walk for about 30s or so but then got back on with the running and managed to carry on!

I ran the second and third 7 mins without stopping but the last one was where I met a snag…

I was overawed at the fact that I felt better at the end of the run than the start, I could carry on and didn’t need to keep stopping…this was unheard of for me…

Gradually however, I was struck by the fact that I very much needed the loo!! This fact was very distracting towards that last few minutes of my run and somewhat destroyed my calm and consistent pace! Until I noticed this, i had been intending to carry the run on for a bit longer after the training program had ended just to see how far I could go…I unfortunately had to make a rapid detour into the pub that was (luckily) at the carpark where I had started the run!

 

When I looked at my stats after this, I discovered that my pace was much more consistent than normal, and my split times were pretty equal apart from the end where (as I ave mentioned) things went a little wrong!

with one blip, where I can only assume I flew, my pace was much more even than it normally is, with the slight drawback that it was slower than usual too…

However, I think My looming 10k is going to be beaten by consistency, and me not feeling like I am going to die and if nothing else this run has shown me that it is possible for (even) me to run and feel fairly comfortable doing it!! 😀

This 10k might not be my downfall after all…

*Might* not be…the chances are still fairly slim…

Day 303 Complete 😀