10k? Ok!

Lately I’ve been wondering why I’ve included the Sigur Rós song Festival in my ‘Martin’s Motivational For When He’s Blowing Out Of His Arse’ running playlist.

I mean, it’s about nine minutes long and for almost exactly half of that it could generously be described as something of a dirge – and that’s me saying that as a fan of the song! Then, around 4 minutes 38 seconds in the beat, as the kids would say, drops and it transforms into a wonderful anthemic, uplifting, blood pumping, makes-you-want-to-run-through-walls spine tingler.

And when that hits right at the end of a run …… absolutely-fucking-fantastic!

That’s what happened today. I had just finished my 10k, my longest run since before the marathon, I was pretty knackered and just wanted to get home. Then the song kicked in and I was instantly transported into a world of euphoria. I’m not too proud to admit there might have been a little bit of dust or something in my eye.

This  was huge psychological moment for me. As I said, it’s my longest run since London and my first going into double km figures since then. I remember my first ever 10k before Christmas and I felt those same feelings today.

Timewise, I was pleased to get below 1hr 30mins, that was my aim going into the run and the fact I managed it with two minutes to spare was good. The time estimation calculator I use predicted a time of high 1:28 so I also beat that by almost a minute … in fact, because I knew I was on target to beat it I sort of eased off a little in the last mile or so. My first 5k was also faster than yesterday.

Today’s plan was for 6 miles, or 9.6km. At the outset I didn’t know whether to stop at that or to carry on for the full 10km – in fact, the adhoc route I took actually left me around a mile from home and I toyed with the idea of just keeping going but Sensible Martin kicked in and told me to stick to the plan, plenty of time for seven miles next week.

I tried to stick to the Ballymena Runners schedule of 4×2 minute splits for as long as I could and, I think, I managed it for an hour or thereabouts which was pleasing – and even after that my legs felt fairly strong.

All in all a really encouraging and promising run. I’m still a work in progress but I’m happy with how my training for Portsmouth is coming on. Four weeks to go!