For the past two weeks, I’ve done a Saturday run before my Sunday long run – and the Sunday session has always been better.
This week I decided to forego the Saturday 5k because I was shifting it to midweek in order to use it for the 401 Challenge Virtual Marathon which begins today. Maybe those three miles on a Saturday morning warmed my legs up, got them prepared for running.
So, perhaps. it was rather more than just a coincidence then, with no preparation yesterday, that my run today was awful.
Or, maybe, it was just a combination of things. I woke at my normal time to an annoying niggle in my left calf. It was fine going to bed so perhaps I lay on it awkwardly in my sleep.
I thought I would leave it a while, do a little work, and see how it felt. It did ease but by that time I felt really tired so went back to bed again for a quick nap.
After waking for a second time, I eventually dragged myself out for today’s run, planned for seven miles – and because I didn’t go out yesterday I used today as the third Ballymena Runners session of the week.
The schedule called for 6-7-6 minute runs, stepping it up a bit from before. However, because my watch couldn’t handle irregular splits like that (or, more likely, I couldn’t figure out how to programme it that way) I decided to go for three 6.5 minute runs with 90 seconds of walking in the gaps in between.
And that went absolutely fine. I had no real trouble doing that. I kept it slow because I knew I was in for the long haul today.
It was after that it all fell to an arse. I don’t know what it was. There was nothing in my legs. I did consider knocking it on the head and going out tomorrow but I was worried that would have a knock on effect for my planned runs later in the week, so I stuck at it.
My split times were abysmal, I’ve rarely been slower although I did record a few negative splits later in the run which possibly points to my legs taking their sweet time to wake up.
Maybe my head and heart just wasn’t in it today. Who knows? Let’s just write this one off and hope for better as the week progresses.
401 Challenge update – 7 miles done, 19.2 left
HUFF, PUFF AND SHUFFLE 