Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Autumn sunshine

It's been a pretty good week of running, overall, with a few notable exceptions, but let's not dwell on the negatives.

Last Sunday, Jo, Viv and I did a little 6km recovery run in East Perth before the all important breakfast. It felt particularly hard that day, but then the day before had been a tough run, with 6km of down hill to finish - always murder on the legs.

Monday's KP run was a little more up-tempo. Becks and I ran together for the first 4km then when the hill hit I just hung in not too far behind her. The main goal was no stopping and keep it under 6 minute KMs, which I did without too much difficulty, averaging around 5.45 pace.

Tuesday morning was my 4km recovery plod - it ought to feel very easy, but sometimes it's the last thing I feel like doing. Later, it was off to JK's session - my first visit in ages. Traffic put an end to my long warm up plan and so I had to do the session on just 7 minutes of warm up. As it turned out, I felt pretty reasonable and managed to improve during the session. I did feel compelled to do a reasonable cool down, though, after missing the warm up so forced myself to run around and around the track (it being dark by then) at least five times! It's not exciting, I have to say.

Wednesday is spin day normally, so the legs get a break from the pounding but still have to work hard on the bike. It's quite a fun little session, but who told the instructor Country Roads remix was bearable! I want to leap out the bike and smash the stupid CD player. Good grief!

Thursday was a gentle jog in the morning for 7km with the plan to do the 5km in the evening. This was probably one of my worst runs of the week, and realising there was no point flogging a dead horse, I pulled the plug at 3km. It was 7 1/2 laps of solid wheezing - no way to run!

Saturday's run couldn't have been more different. We started off downhill so the pace for the first 5km or so was fairly brisk, but I felt pretty good. I had great company, chatting to Kate for about 8km and completely forgot where I was. The stretch from Pechey Road to John Forest is pretty exposed and on a windy day can be tough, so I took advantage of the four well-build guys who were running just ahead and used them as a windbreak for most of that section - I hope they forgive me. The last part was Becks, Viv and I. Viv wasn't feeling too great so Becks and I went on ahead. It was great until the haul up Park Road, but even that wasn't too bad. We then had a lovely social run back down the hill to complete a very pleasant 20km. Making it even more appealing, Jo had a birthday breakfast booked at a nearby cafe. Fabulous food and company made for a wonderful morning. It doesn't get better than this.

Sunday I decided a lone run was in order. We'd had a latish night the night before and I didn't want to commit to getting up early. I ran from home around 8ish for 9km, doing it at easy pace rather than recovery pace (5.45). I felt okay for this, which is good after a long run the day before. I knew Monday would be difficult to get much of a run in as I was helping at the 32km - well done on this Kate, it's a huge job and you did really well! I managed a 4km in the afternoon, but really struggled through it with a stitch. Once I'd managed to get rid of it, the run was fine, but talk about agony!

This morning it was back to tempo running. I probably should have had breakfast and gone a little later, but I wanted to get going. So I set off at 7.25am with just Sustagen to keep me going. About 20 minutes into the tempo part of the run (35 minutes into the run) I was battling, I pushed through to 30 minutes, took a quick break and then forced myself to do the final 10 minutes of tempo to make a 40 minute tempo. The jog home was tough, too, but all in all I managed a 1 hour 5 minute run, with 40 minutes of tempo and the KM or so before being easy pace. It will be nice to have a few recovery runs now!

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