I’ve been feeling somewhat lethargic recently for whatever reason. I stayed in bed today until nearly 3pm, yesterday was almost as bad and it’s been a pattern that has developed over the past week or so.
With that in mind I didn’t hold out much hope for my run today. I knew I had to do one otherwise I’d feel I was back to square one. Again. And I couldn’t let that happen.
Not feeling particularly sociable today either I decided upon a route what would bring me into contact with as few people as possible, so that meant the industrial estate and the dual carriageaway.
I hadn’t run around there for a while so it was a bit of novelty to go back to see what, if anything, had changed.
I hadn’t set out with any specific distance or time in mind but seeing that I’d an hour left to go on the Vassos Alexander audiobook I thought that’d do me rightly – run for an hour and see where it took me ….. five miles as it turned out.
Looking back at the profile of the run, it looked like a classic Tour de France Alpine mountain stage. A gentle start, a small climb, a flat section, a steeper climb, a downhill portion and then what felt like the north face of the Eiger.
But, you know what, whereas each incline would have prompted me to break into a walk before that didn’t happen today. I tackled them head on, and felt bloody good about it.
In fact, during the entire run I walked for barely a minute apart from a brief wobble around the 6km mark when I ran to the next lamppost, walked to the one after that etc. but then I found some inner strength and ploughed on.
As always with me, I found the first part of the run difficult. There’s always that constant battle between my head and my legs. Sometimes my legs win, today it was my head.
My fastest km split was the last one. I just found all this energy from somewhere. I felt I was hurtling towards the finish but in a controlled, graceful way not the lumbering juggernaut I know I really am.
And it was nice, too, that I ran past a couple of neighbours at this point. I felt I was going fast (very much a relative term for me – snails pace for most other runners!) and I felt like a runner.
The last time I ran precisely five miles was back in June in a race, just over a month after the marathon when I should have been at peak fitness. I haven’t been able to get back to that pace again for the distance – but today I did. I actually beat it, not by much, 15 seconds or so, but I still beat it and it felt fantastic to get that particular monkey off my back.
Cobwebs, what cobwebs?
HUFF, PUFF AND SHUFFLE 