It’s been a good week for running so far. I managed to pull myself out of bed on Wednesday and Friday at 5am . The reason why I get up so early on weekday runs is that I know it’s gonna take at least 30 minutes to entertain the notion of going outside. By 5:30am I’m awake but still dreading the run.
The important thing is getting up from my bed and trying to stop falling back into sleep. it’s far too easy to hit snooze and climb back into bed.
On both of the runs this week I had to bargain myself into going outside. It worked. On Friday it was raining heavily and I coaxed myself into the jog by agreeing it was better to go for a 4 mile run than to lie inside and do nothing.
I ran 8 miles when I got out.
The most difficult part of any run is getting out there in the first place. Once you have your shoes and gear on, it becomes easy. It’s just about persuading yourself to make those first steps. It’s fucking difficult to do, but I managed it.
Your brain will always try to convince you to stay inside when the weather is shit, but once you get outside and start moving your heart will soar and everything else will be irrelevant.
And another run today!
I ran 8.4 miles today at a 9:53 min/mile pace. I’m finally managing to hit both my pace and distance targets for my Paris Marathon training which is in only 10 weeks time.
I’ve been aiming to make my short runs fit into the 8-10 mile category and it’s only this week it’s been easy. To make long runs a routine I need to be running longer distances in my short runs. It makes sense. Before I’d focus on weekly mileage and assume that running 5 miles twice on a Saturday meant that I could easily cover 10 miles.
It made me confident in running 5 miles and that’s about it.
I can only become comfortable at running 10 miles by running 10 miles and dealing with any physical or mental issues that may arise as those are the things that will matter when it comes to race day.
The run today didn’t go completely smoothly.
I wasn’t going to mention this as it will make me sound like a bit of a twat, but fuck it who cares. You know what I am.
Mid-way through the run I encountered a woman on the opposite side of the road. She was walking 2 small dogs and standing outside a farm with horses in the field by the gate. Her dogs were frightening the animals and she wasn’t doing anything to stop it.
I felt like saying something to her about it but I let it be. I managed to get 100 metres further down the road when I heard her scream. I glanced back and she was lying on the ground with the dogs trying to pull her in opposite directions.
Normally I would have offered assistance in such a situation, but this time around I can’t help but think she had it coming to her.
I made the most of the tragedy and put in a little bit of impromptu speed work to flee the scene.
By mile 7 I was certain I would have to stop. I felt like I was dying.
With laughter.
Running for longer but less often.
So in short I’m running less often but for longer each time. In January 2012 I ran 24 times in the month and covered 140 miles. In January 2013 I’ve covered 95 miles and ran 11 times and I feel much stronger on the long run because of it.
Tomorrow I have to cover 14 miles on the long run and I’m confident that I’ll do it. I might have to jog a little slower than I’m used to, but it will happen and it’ll be good.