A wintery Sunday morning run

It's soooo cold in the UK at the moment, winter is still very much upon us, and it's heading towards April; this is insane! Anyway, regardless, I knew I needed to get a long run in this weekend that was more than the 3-ish miles I've been doing the past few weeks, but I wasn't too keen on the idea of it. You know, what with running sucking, and all that...

Anyways, up popped Helen last night - a friend of a friend - offering a very slow 6 mile run this morning, leaving me with not a lot of time to find an excuse to back out. And thus, I found myself driving to Falkirk this morning to run in Callendar Park with a lovely lady I'd never met before. A 6-ish mile run, dealing with light snow/ice on the ground in places, huge muddy puddles on a lot of the route, and a very definite wind-chill factor!!

We ran together slowly, and steadily, up a slight incline into the woods, and then walked a wee bit, before running again. And that's kind of how it went: we ran for a while and walked for a short bit, for the rest of the run - some of it on tarmac and pavement, some on trail and very muddy tracks. (Ha, maybe I can manage this trail-running malarkey after all....) - Helen runs ultramarathons, and only just last weekend ran the 33 mile D33 race on Saturday, and followed it immediately with the Alloa half marathon on Sunday! Madness!!! *laughs* Inspirational stuff. She offered me lots of great advice and suggestions, and made some comments on my form that I'll definitely be working on. She kept reminding me to slow it down during the running (I honestly thought it wasn't possible for me to be slower than I already am, but heh, turns out it is!) and showed me how to change my paces for the upward and downward bits. We talked a bit (when I was able, lol) and she was really supportive too, albeit 'supportively' leading me on a route which required going up a hill locally known as 'Heartbreak Hill' three times!! We finished at 6.5 miles, in a time of around 1 hr 25, so a pace that's pretty slow (purposefully so) but still one that would have got me a half-marathon PB had it been maintained for another 6.6 miles!! Talk about a brilliant way to give me a bit of belief in what I can achieve over the next 9 weeks!

All in all, a bizarrely positive experience - and I say bizarre because I was running, in freezing cold temperatures, with a strong wing in places, with someone I'd not met before... and I'm frankly amazed that the Sarah I know can ever call that positive!!! Perhaps I'm making more progress putting that Sarah behind me than I thought....!

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