I've said a few times, but my 'main' race this year is the 16 mile Southside Six, which is now just over 5 weeks away. Due to the timescales, and the fact that I've never ran more than 13.1 miles, it was important that I didn't lose focus on my training after the Great North Run. I'm not stupid, though, and I know that after a race I needed a little rest for my body, so I took Monday off any training, Tuesday was just a short gentle evening swim, and then I went ot personal training on Wednesday morning, and we had a 'light' session on the core etc. No running. :) Thursday dawned, and another personal training session, which focussed on squats and lunges and things like that. It was mentally as challenging as it was physically, but I made it through. My legs felt really tired afterwards, and specifically my glutes - they were the only muscles that had had a dull ache the day after the GNR, so I really ought to have stretched them a bit more, but hindsight is marvellous.... Still no running done, though.
On Friday, I woke up with sore glutes - well, let's be honest here, my bum hurt! haha. The things I do to myself in order to improve my life, huh? :) I'd arranged to meet Bob after work, for a run round the 4.7 mile trail loop at Chatelherault, and the thought of the hills and undulations on that lap filled me with a little dread, however I hadn't ran since Sunday, and I hadn't done this route since July I think, so I wanted to push myself to try and get a PB on the lap. I told Bob as such, but I didn't want to rely on him to push me round because (a) he didn't know the route at all, and (b) I need to be better at pushing myself. I'll skim over all the car problems I had, and just jump to the fact that I got to Chatelherault at about 5:45pm. My best time on this lap is 1:05:32, and for a late September run, it was going to be touch and go getting back before dark, so we set off straight away - me, Bob, and his collie Moss. Every time I've done this lap (this is the 4th go), I've managed the first 2 miles a few seconds either side of 26 minutes, and this time was exactly the same. The third mile is the one with the BIG hill in it, and with me not keeping track, looking back, I lost a LOT of time here this time. I think the difference is once we reached the top of the hill, I stayed walking, taking rather a long time to get running again. It just felt so f*cking hard!! My glutes were screaming at me, after the looooong inclines of the GNR, and a Thursday morning heavy squats and lunges session in the gym, and it took a lot for me to get going again after the hill. Bob tried to encourage me on, but I was in full-on whinge mode. (It didn't help that he sniggered every time I whinged, haha.)
Anyway, I checked my Garmin when we had about 1½ miles to go, and was somewhat horrified that I only had about 18 minutes to go to get a PB, roughly, which was gonna be tough, as the last couple of miles on this route are undulating and there are a few wee climbs that are harder with tired legs. In addition, as it was heading ever closer towards 7pm (sunset time), being deep within the trees in the wooded area meant it was alread getting pretty dark. Bob took it on himself to push me through the last mile and a half, and we picked up the runing speed a bit. He helped me use each downhill as momentum to get me over halfway up the next wee incline before even starting to work, and I pushed on. It started to become a wee bit panicky and tight in my chest, not because of the physical exertion but the mental aspect of trying to push on without walking, while ignoring pain in my bum. I thought I was really running fast, but looking at the data afterwards, I was actually almost a whole minute wee bit slower in the last two miles than the last time I ran here! It felt totally different, though. I'll have to figure that out next time I run there.
The very last hill to the 'finish line' (the visitor centre) felt impossibly difficult, and I pushed really hard to get to the top, though kinda crashed with about 50m to go, then pushed on again. My Garmin shows I did 4.8 miles (0.1 miles more than usual - must have started the watch a wee bit earlier than usual) in 1:05:33 - one single second slower than my PB!! (Although it measured a wee bit further, so in theory it's faster.) I really can't be disappointed, though - I pushed hard, and I ran this tough loop with tired legs and sore muscles. I'm pretty confident I can beat my time next time I run it. :) Plus, I had good company, and Moss seemed to really enjoy herself running through the wood, so all in all, a successful evening.
Saturday morning, and I went across to Glasgow to try the Tollcross parkrun for the first time. I must be mad - the description showed it to be a stupidly hill course, and my legs were still tired and sore from the Thursday personal training followed by the Friday trail run - but I'd arranged to meet the Moonertys and go for a swim afterwards, so on I went. I told myself my time didn't matter, I would take it as it came, and of course as soon as we got started, I was in last place, with the tailrunner running alongside me. I'll be honest, I was quite happy with that, as I didn't feel under any pressure or anything. Just see how it went. The hills start immediately, and it's a 2½ lap course, so as soon as you run up one, you know you're going to have to do it 2 more times, but in the meantime, there are other ones to tackle. I ran as much as I could, and walked a few times, but I tried to pick the running pace up (which the tailrunner remarked on) and keep a strong brisk walking pace on the hills (the tailrunner remarked on that, too!) - and after a tough run, with Davie's encouragement over the last 500 metres or so, I managed a fast wee finish across the grass and managed a time of 36:55 for the 5km course - really, really pleased with that, given how undulating the course was. Examination of my garmin record afterward shows the most of my running sections were done at 10 minute mile pace, or faster - omg!!!!! Bloody thrilled by that.
We had a swim after the run, nothing too strenuous but I still gave my lungs a good workout by doing some breathing exercises etc. It was a great, chilled-out way to cool down from the run, I swam about 12 laps of the 25m pool, 10 in breast stroke, and 2 laps of back stroke (cos I had a gloriously wide lane completely to myself). It was a pretty good way to spend a Saturday morning. Good company, a good (?) run, and a good swim. Hurrah!! So I celebrated a couple of positive, challenging days with a couple of total rest days. And now it's time to turn my mind back to the Southside Six training, and get those long runs back into the schedule. This weekend, after running parkrun again on Saturday, I hope to run about 9 or 10 very slow miles; we'll see how it goes. Feeling quite positive at the moment. Long may it last.
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