A trip to parkrun, and attack on Chatelherault

So, my running plan for the weekend (where I planned to work for a PB at the Chatelherault trail loop on Sunday) noted that parkrun on Saturday would be optional but time was irrelevant as I needed to make sure I had plenty in my legs for Sunday. My aim was to "run within myself" (it's actually somewhat strange to hear myself saying that about my own running, I'll be honest) and not push myself too far, so I selected the almost flat parkrun at Perth for my first time back there in 12 weeks. My time then was 35:41, and I'd been pretty damn happy with that - running to the halfway mark and run-walking to the finish. Today, I lined up pretty much knowing I would run the whole way, and thinking in my head that if I got around 35 minutes nice and steady, that would be alright by me.

What happened, though, blew me away. I set off at a fast-ish pace, in the crowd, and settled relatively comfortably into sub 11-minute mile pace. Wait, what? Comfortable?? My heart rate backed that up - I wasn't pushing. I tried to keep the pace steady, but keep it close to 11 minutes if I could - in fact, it stayed below it throughout. The first mile was 10:36, and second 10:39. Starting the 3rd mile, I still felt relatively okay - my breathing was fine, though I was starting to feel the deadlifts I'd done in the gym the day before, in my hamstrings, and cursing myself. Now, I started to comfortably overtake some of the other girls who had been running my sort of pace, and that buoyed me on, and for the first time, with about 500 metres to go, I started to push. Up the very small hill to get back into the park, I pushed hard, and picked up the pace as best I could for a fast last 200m or so, with Karen and Barry cheering me on over the line. I finished with a smile, and saw my Garmin tell me something that stunned me: 32:20. I had just taken 58 seconds off my new 5km PB from Edinburgh about 6 weeks ago, and 3:21 off my last time here 12 weeks ago. And I hadn't broken myself in the process. My third mile was 10:18 - which is a 1 mile PB, though when you add on the last 0.1 miles which I ran at sub-8 minute mile pace (!!!!), Garmin had worked out I had actually ran a 10 minute mile during the 5km. One full mile, in 10 minutes. Me! Stunned.

My average heart rate for the 5km run was 166 - which frankly amazes me. I sat for a long time in the car, feeling a wee bit overwhelmed. What is actually possible, this year? In 5½ months I've taken around 10 minutes off my 5km PB time, and my entire way of thinking around my capability of running is changing more with every day. It's exciting, scary, gratifying and overwhelming in equal measure.

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So, walking on clouds after Saturday (and having rested up the rest of the day) I wasn't sure what would happen on Sunday's run over at Hamilton. I've ran the undulating 4.7 mile trail loop maybe 8 or 9 times now, but never beaten the time of my first run there, which was 1:05:32. I last ran it 12 weeks ago (ha! coincidentally, the same weekend I last ran Perth parkrun, I only just realised that! Here's the blog post from that weekend.) and managed it in 1:05:57. Really happy with that, I had walked quite a few times but felt positive about how my year was starting to go, and how I'd turned a corner from my running of late 2013 and all of 2014. So what would happen today??

Well, my target had originally been to crack the 1 hour mark, but after a great result at Perth parkrun on Saturday, and with some residual muscles soreness in my hamstrings from Friday's deadlifts, I decided I didn't want to pressure myself too much, and halfway round I would reassess where I was, timewise; if I wasn't on for the 1 hour, I would work hard for a PB anyway - anything under 1:05 would be fab. Davie said he would run with me, and we were going for the 1 hour - so with the big steep hill in the middle, I worked out to myself that if I kept below 12 minute miles, the fact it's 4.7 miles would give me a small cushion for a couple of minutes extra in that 3rd mile with the hill.

It was a smaller social group than previous, this week, but lots of familiar friendly faces, and in the main, they stayed as one big group. For the first 2 minutes, I ran at the front of the group (haaaa), and then they passed me and moved on, and I settled into my own running out the back. Within 6 or 7 minutes, they were still just in sight up ahead, which was great, as it's most unusual for me! It's been a while since I ran on trail, so I focussing on not tripping over tree roots or rocks, but also on making sure I was running reasonably well up the inclines and using the drops to get a wee breather or the momentum to push up the next little rise...

After a bit, Julie was running back to see how I was doing, so we ran together for a bit. I wasn't terribly conversational - I already knew I was working so much harder today than yesterday - my first mile was 11:51, and my second was 12:03 - delighted, but working for it, and I knew what was ahead. Davie had joined us by now, and as we reached the steps down and started bouncing our way down them, he shouted out to me things like: "keep it easy, relax into it..." and "...start thinking about how you're going to attack the hill..." - causing me to point out that telling me to start thinking about the hill, and relax, could not both happen at the same time!! :-)

We crossed the bridge, and I ran up the first short sharp climb from the bridge, and turned the corner, to face the big hill ahead of me. I picked a spot to one side, and ran on the hill, narrowing my stride and slowing down. My breathing was getting laboured, and my heart rate climbing, and as I reached the point I'd chosen, I realised I'd been a bit negative about what I could manage, and picked a second spot further ahead, where a tree trunk lay on it's side alongside the path. I ran up to this trunk, then slowed to a walk, but kept myself moving. Davie was encouraging me, and he stayed ahead as I tried to keep my pace up, walking up the hill, and trying to get my breathing under control.

Reaching the top, we found the group waiting for us! I was determined I wasn't stopping, so I walked straight past everyone in a most unsociable manner, lol, and then moved to the side to let them all run past at they set off again. I kept moving, now on the flat, but I was struggling to get my breath back under control enough to start running again. I decided my heart rate must still be sky high, having reached the 190s during the climb, but checking it, it showed 133, so I was surprised by my recovery, and realised I had no excuse but to start running again!!

There are a few more wicked little hills in the second part of the run, and I was absolutely stunned by myself running all the way up them. Now it was just Davie and I, and he was chattering away about things to distract me, knowing I couldn't exactly interrupt because chatting is not something I was capable of as I ran. Every little hill I came to, and struggled up, warranted a short sharp expletive to be uttered, but that was about all I could manage in terms of conversation! I had ran the third mile in 13:08, which meant the sub 1 hour run was definitely on, but after the climb, my hamstrings were tight and sore, and my breathing was harder to keep control of. Now it was just a game of focussing on my running, focussing on my breathing, and focussing on what I was achieving in general.

When my watch showed 3.7 miles, the time was around 46 minutes - I had to run a 14 minute mile to crack the one hour mark. That felt VERY achievable, but would require me to just keep moving. I was determined there would be no walking, and just pushed on, as Davie ran out of distracty things to talk about and just decided to keep telling me how well I was doing, lol. I think I was surprising him just as much as I was surprising myself. The 4th mile was 12:47, and I continued on pushing harder and harder, with 1km to go.

I practically flew down the small hill towards the bridge in the last 500m or so of the run, and staggered across the bridge knowing was lay ahead. Davie said something like "400 metres to go - one lap of a track" - and I thought "An entirely uphill track..." as I hit the incline. Every single part of me was screaming to stop now, but all I could do was run up the hill. I was gasping, and struggling, and fighting, and in the background Davie was shouting encouragement at me, and my heart was leaping out of my chest (it topped out at a whacking 209 bpms), but I did it; I ran to the finish. Pressed stop, collapsed to the floor, and saw 57:15. Absolutely floored - and that last 0.7 miles had been ran at an average pace of 11:14 mins/mile!!

Sitting on the cold, wet floor, I didn't know whether I wanted to throw up, or lie down, and I tried to sort of curl into a ball to figure it out, but Davie told me to keep my head up, to keep my lungs open and working well... I'm not sure how long I stayed there, but eventually I got to my feet, and went for a cuppa... Couldn't have ran something quite as gratifying and tough as that without a big mug of tea at the finish, could I?

I'm using the word "overwhelming" quite a lot lately, when talking about my running. I don't know where this is all coming from, but taking over 8 minutes off my PB at Chatelherault was something I never dreamed I would be able to do yesterday - especially after a new 5km PB the day before.

No photos from the running this weekend, sorry this was quite a wordy blog post even by my standards!! I'll do a photo post next time, lol. x