Back with a vengeance

I had a most enjoyable short break in France.  The only downside being that I went ten days without running and boy is that a mistake!  Not that the break was ten days of course.  If only.  No it's just that what with all the organising pre-hol and all the exhaustion afterwards, I just didn't get the chance.  The result was that I ran with the club last Thursday and it felt soooooo hard. Then I ran with the club on Saturday morn and that also felt very hard.  On Monday I ran 4.5 miles on a very hot morning and on a hilly trail route.  It's most dispiriting to feel you are going backwards when I need to be going forwards with my mileage.  Anyway, the upside is that last night I decided to do a bit of speed training so I did a 1 mile warm up followed by 3 lots of 0.5 mile fast, 0.5 mile recovery.  Although it felt quite challenging it was OK and I felt pretty good about myself afterwards.  I also used my heart rate monitor for the first time though I'm not entirely sure what the results prove!

So I'm back into it and I'm not going to let it beat me.  You read it here.

Mud Runner

Well today was a disaster.  Started off badly in that I had to run in glasses due to my sore eye and that's always a bad thing i.e. Eric Morecambe- style poking up of the bridge of the specs every 5 mins.  Then I went off around the corner of the house, with my head down,  trying to zip my iPod into my waist belt and walked straight into the postman.  It gave me such a fright that I screamed my head off.    To which he replied "I always have that effect on people".

It was a really hot humid day when I had expected it to be a cool rainy one.  Consequently running felt like very hard work and I'd only just started.  I wanted to do 7 miles so as to keep up my weekly mileage.  Off I ran up the farm lane and across a footpath across a field.  All good.  Next footpath was overgrown so I had to slow to a walk.  The next field has a bull in it.  Now I know my running has improved but I'm not taking him on. No sirree!  So I had to walk round the field and it was waist-high in grass and thistles and nettles and I was wearing shorts. Owch.  Then I tried to run again but the ground was muddy and slidey and everytime I took a step I slid sideways or backwards so it was twice as hard as it should have been.

In a nutshell I did 7 miles of running/walking/sliding/leaping and at the end I was one big sweaty, muddy mess.  What a day.

Hammy Hamster's Adventures on the Riverbank

Or should that be my adventure? On Saturday the running club decided to try a new route which involved running alongside the River Ancholme.  We set off merrily and almost immediately the heavens opened.  So that's pouring rain, an uneven towpath and long grass/nettles to contend with.  What fun.  It was certainly an experience.  Particularly the soaked to the skin bit.  Still at least it wasn't cold.  And overall a nice 6.7 miles clocked up.  Though I have to say that for the last mile or more I was battling with the demon on my shoulder that urges me to walk.

On Monday 2 July we had another Croxby Crawl.  This time I managed the whole route with no walking and in 45 mins.  Oh yeah!