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Blimey! When did I do a marathon? The Monday after the Sunday before, my legs felt as though London had come and gone! Heading to work on the bike was hard enough so how the hell was I going to run? Well, the simple answer was that I wasn't! Getting up, sitting down, you name it, it ached and as much as I wanted to get out and do something, I had to be realistic and note that basically, I was knackered!
Following a slight improvement, I headed out on Tuesday for my runch, and it wasn't much better. "Miles in the legs" I told myself as I plodded along. It wasn't spectacular (then again when am I - except when falling over!) but it was done. My sensibleness continued into Wednesday where I waited for my GoodGym run, rather than two runs in a day. How glad I was! The dark nights are here now which is fine by me, but the 5km was so much harder than the previous week. Frequent glances to the Garmin showed me that I was on marathon pace so that was a crumb of comfort, but there was a decent tail wind behind me (which did zap me for the first mile out into it before turning!) Nevertheless, another few miles on tired legs!
Thursday saw a change in the weather and a change in my legs. Again, nothing exciting but a 5km runch that was much more comfortable than the previous days in the week. Relieved with this for sure, but felt good enough to then do a two mile potter on Friday which is my official rest day! Again it was good to be out, but I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open for the rest of the afternoon in the office and I was happy to hit my pillow later in the evening!
Saturday was a long awaited return to Hove Prom parkrun where I hadn't run (the parkrun) in what felt like ages! Being the wonderful morning person I am, the legs did not feel up for it, but a morning latte seemed to inject some form of energy. There was a glimpse, just a tiny one that things are heading in the right direction. I started off with a potter - or what I assumed to be a potter at 8.22/mile. As the legs woke up, I found I was unintentionally increasing "speed". OK three seconds quicker for the second mile isn't going to make headlines but, somewhere, deep inside, I was realising that I can put more effort in and it won't actually kill me or ruin me! The third mile was 8.07 which was added by a little kick for home that showed up as 7.13/mile for the last bit! I do have to thank Matt Lee for this, for stirring some sort of competitiveness in me, as he stated he was fresh off a plane and that I should be beating him. (He was approx ten yards behind me at the final turn!) Thanks Matt for letting me see something in me that I didn't know was there!
Following a tired Sunday (not that I attribute that to the parkrun, more the delicious roast at The Bevy), Lucy and I headed out for an easy 5km on Monday morning. She was keen to see some of the snails and I had the guilt of being lazy the day before (Damn you KP Dry Roasted Peanuts!) As it turns out, it was another far from easy one as we headed to the Pier from Asda in our Contra tops (Luce looking much better in hers than I in mine!) It wasn't pretty (no, not me for once), but it was a 5km and towards the end the legs felt better than at any stage in the run. Perhaps I need three miles to warm up! Well Tuesday night would show that as we looked to add a 4-5 mile run in. But as ever, that's another story!