Monday Monday

Two runs today … an early morning shorter one to the gym, followed by the normal Monday night club session.

My first run of the day was a 4km round-trip to my gym for the 6:30am HIIT class. I’ll admit to waking up this morning and wondering just what I was thinking.

The Saints & Slimmers programme is over, I have no need to be out this early on a Monday morning yet, here I was, getting ready to head out in the cold and dark for a 30-minute class in the middle of an industrial estate.

But out I went. Perhaps as a consequence of not having done anything since my 10-miler on Wednesday night I struggled a little on the outward run. Struggle is maybe even too strong a term, but I certainly wasn’t comfortable nor did I enjoy it.

However, despite the tough class, I felt an awful lot better on the return run and felt quite nippy (later borne out by the stats) which surprised me given what I’d put my body through already this morning.

I had started to let the old doubts creep back in over the weekend. Logically I knew that a few days rest were good for my body but the illogical part of me started to believe that I’ll have lost all the fitness and improvements I’d built up over the previous six or seven weeks.

Those doubts were well and truly quashed this morning.

On so onto the club session in the evening. My knees were a little stiff during the day – perhaps unsurprisingly – so I wasn’t entirely sure what group to run with.

I decided to go with the 60s in the end, mainly because most of my running buddies did. Yes, I can be a sheep at times!

My last outing with the 60-minute group was an unmitigated disaster so I was a bit apprehensive about how it’d go.

Happily, tonight was every bit as good as my last attempt was bad. As has been the norm lately I felt very comfortable throughout. I was ticking over at a reasonable pace, and feeling I had more to give should I needed to but, with Sunday in mind, I was happy enough to run with the pack and resisted the temptation to open up a bit when the opportunity presented itself.

Given the weather forecast for the rest of the week I don’t really want to make plans too far in advance but I am hoping to squeeze in another couple of runs before leaving for London on Friday.

The important thing at this stage is just to keep active without overdoing it and, ahead of a major race, I’m feeling as good as I have done for quite a while.

Relive my run – part one
Relive my run – part two