Sunny McSunface

Two days ago I was giving off stink about running in the rain in July. Two days later I’m out at 8pm on a Sunday night in my sunglasses sweating buckets. Such are the joys of the Northern Irish summer!

It wasn’t in my plan to be out this late. A family outing to the beach late morning/early afternoon was then followed by watching both the men’s final at Wimbledon and the Cricket World Cup decider simultaneously, like a sizeable chunk of the rest of the population I presume.

I only have a slight passing interest in both sports, my sporting job and my running is enough for me normally, but I know sporting drama when I see it so I was hooked on both. The cricket, especially, was thrilling but when I didn’t finish until 7:30pm I had the choice of not going for a run at all, or going out easy.

Although I would have gone out in the morning instead I also didn’t want not to go tonight because that would have meant my miles for the week would have dropped – and since I’m supposed to be on the way back I didn’t want to chance that getting into my head and niggling away at me.

So go out it was. It was still very bright and very warm hence the sunglasses at 8 o’clock in the evening! I know, I know … such a poser 🙂

As usual, it was the dual carriageway/industrial estate route with a C25K day stretched out to cover 5k. In this instance it was run 3, walk 1.5, run 5, walk 2.5 and repeat.

Because of the time of night, and the fact my legs take a while to settle after a run, I decided to take this easy. Just get it done, get some more miles in my legs and get back home.

I very definitely ran within my comfort zone, but it was good and it was enjoyable. My legs felt relaxed, my breathing was good and I generally ran with ease.

In fact, there was a tinge of disappointment when I had to walk again, especially the 2.5 minute chunks. They felt too long but I wanted to stick to the schedule so I persevered with it.

Well, for two miles anyway. For the final mile I decided to ignore through the run/walk splits, partly to test my legs and partly to test my mental strength. I’m passed both with flying colours!

I didn’t increase my speed, I just kept to the same comfortable plod I had employed up to this point but it was a very useful exercise in ignoring what technology told me to do, good training for also blocking out the voices in my head that tell me to quit.