Saturday evening I met up with Catriona for another run – this time I was sticking to her schedule, basically we ran 2 mns, walked 2 mins, for a little over 2½ miles. Nice slow ploddy pace, we chatted the whole way, and I felt really pleased that I’d managed all of the 2 minute runs. I was on a bit of a high. :-) I spectated the Edinburgh marathon for a bit on Sunday, and while feeling strongly motivated for running I went out on Monday evening by myself to try and repeat Saturday evening's run, but as is so often the case, I gave up long before I should have done, and while I still ran 2½ miles, the run bits were shorter, and the walk bits were longer – I have to crack this!! :-(
Wednesday morning at the gym before work, I managed to sneak into ‘testosterone corner’ for a shot on the Olympic bar – I did some sets of squats, with the bar weighing 20kgs, 30kgs, 40kgs, and 35kgs – felt great, actually; sure I used to lift heavier, but not for a long time, so I was pretty pleased. The rest of the session was hard-going, but pretty good. I have, of course, paid for it big time with muscle soreness in my legs today, 2 days later, but I’m claiming “totally worth it”.
Last night, I changed into running gear at work, and drove straight over to Strathclyde Park to meet up with some folks who’ve been doing a month one mile challenge: basically, during May, the aim was to beat your previous 1 mile PB as many times as you could. There have been some pretty stunning results from the 50-ish people taking part, both at the crazy-fast end of the spectrum, but also in terms of the level of improvement some of the not-as-fast runners have made in such a short space of time. It’s been inspiring. Personally, I wasn’t able to give the challenge the effort I ought to have, as for most of the month I was under the weather with a chest infection, but also because I'm nowhere near the level I was when I ran my fastest ever mile over a year ago (10:27) and so my fastest time during the challenge month had come very early on, 11:44, and I’d been nowhere near that in runs I’ve done since then. I wanted to turn up to the group run to mark the month coming to a close, and to see if I could get close to the same time again. About 17 or 18 people had replied to the facebook event notification to say they would come, but as the day grew closer, people backed out. By the time we actually got together last night, there were 7 of us. I had ran a short warm-up with Robert Soutar, and a good wee catch-up chat, but struggled to keep running more than a few minutes, even though the pace was slow, so I’d ran/walked a bit with him, and then I tried to stretch my sore quads a bit while he went off for a longer warm-up with James Stewart, and Davie Mooney catching them up too. Janice Millar had arrived (she’s looking leaner every time I see her!), and I’d introduced myself to the two other guys who I’d not met before, Neil and Tom. We were all in good spirits, and soon enough, decided to start our miles. The 5 guys set off first, and Janice and I immediately after, and shortly, everyone was away! The mile we’d picked is a completely flat, almost straight route, and at 7:30pm on a weeknight, it wasn’t too busy with pedestrians; the only slight factor was there was a bit of a wind, but actually as I focussed on my running, I hardly noticed the wind.
For the first 200m or so, I was running sub 9 minute mile pace, eerrrrr, what??! But my heart was pounding, and I slowed the pace for maybe 30 seconds or so, until finally dropping into a walk. I checked my watch, told myself I wouldn’t walk more than 30 seconds, and focussed on the ‘average pace’ read-out, as it crept upwards. A couple more runs and walks, and I reached around 11 minutes, but I couldn’t sustain a run long enough or fast enough to keep it around there, and it slowed to about 12 mins. By about three quarters of the way, James and Robert had come back to meet me, and they ran with me for my last bit, giving me encouragement, helping keep me going, and laughing as I informed them “running sucks!” – Tom had also come back, and ran back with us, as we met Davie and Neil who’d walked back to maybe 100m from the finish. As I headed, exhausted, for the finish point, I checked my watch, and felt a wee bit stunned, and hit the stop button as it ticked over onto 1 mile, in 11:20. Yay!! It’s by no means a PB, but it’s the best mile time I’ve ran in probably a year or so, and I’m really pleased – but gosh, it was hard going. I walked maybe 4 times in total (I’ll have to check my Garmin record) which sounds crazy to walk so much in a 1 mile run, but my running pace for the non-walk bits was really pretty good. It’s something to build some future interval training sessions around, for sure (so says Davie. Sigh).
I sat down for a bit, hearing how everyone else had done (brilliantly! Everyone who was in the month challenge has beaten their PBs!) then got to my feet, as we started to walk back to the start - well, all except James for whom going to meet his missus and cute wee kids at the playpark was a better option than hanging with us bunch o' dafties - hard as that may be to believe! :-) We chatted as we walked along, and at the halfway point we all started slowly running again. I couldn’t really manage the full half mile without a walk break, though Robert and Neil kept telling me to keep running! I have no idea what pace I was plodding along at, at that point, but I feel so far away from the girl that ran 5km without walking last year. I know I’ll get back there, and then faster, again – just got to keep at it.So it’s been quite an encouraging week, low mileage and speed notwithstanding. My pedometer has been racking up some very high numbers, which is great, and exercise is starting to become just an automatic part of my day again, which is fab. I’m on my way back…
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