Did an OK time but was struggling as went off too fast, really don’t know what happened to the leg, as apart from my back problems, there was nothing wrong with the leg

Hey ho – was good to see Neil and Dawn though…

And imagined Becky with me in the woods, before she ran off to chase squirrels in the trees yonder

I set off earlier than last week, but got there later, I didn’t get to bed too early and didn’t sleep and was feeling frankly rough when I got up, and felt a bit sick on the bus. Seemed to take longer than last time, and in fact when the bus dropped me off at the bottom of the hill near Vernon Park, I checked the time and it was 8:45 – and the start line was a 15 mins walk away, so I figured I could have a nice warmup to get there, although I still had to get out of my joggers and use the loo. And I felt bloody awful and breathless jogging up the hill and had to stop – then jogged through a veritable swamp as I took the shortcut over the field to get to the track. So had soaking wet feet. I managed to get out of my sweats and put my trainers on, and really needed to use the loo, but all the cubicles were occupied, then a kid went in one cubicle and came out screaming his head off. I went in, and saw why – let’s just say, how does a person manage to miss like that? It was just there, perched, staring at me… Still, needs must… and I improvised. By this point had about 2 mins left, and Garmin couldn’t find the satellite as I stood there kicking my own arse with my heels and trying to convince myself I was ready to run a tough 5k I did meet Mark, the triathlete, who ran into my blog the other week, and we had a brief chat.

On your marks, get set go, they said, and I thought I started the Garmin, but half way round the track I glanced at it – 0:00:00. Ooops. So I started it and after about 2 more minutes I was feeling half dead, but I kept going. Whatever official distance I’d done, the Garmin ticked over one k in 5:30 and the next one in 6 mins, I started swearing, I have not run that slowly apart from a warmup or cool down jog recently. So I just kept going, feeling half dead and wondering what the hell was wrong with me today. There was a blonde lady in front of me and she was very supportive and told me to take it easy as there would be plenty more runs – true of course, but I couldn’t understand why I was going so slow…. 6 mins for one k? On the second lap went past Mark who had started walking and tried to encourage him, then just kept going through the pain.

Sort of came alive after the last hill (attacked the hill twice this time) and had a bit of a burst of speed in the last K, and sprinted for the finish, leaving the supportive lady behind, and almost reeling in another lady, who put on a burst of speed to avoid my overtaking her, well done that lady .

Garmin time was going to be useless so awaited results – and somehow ended up with an improvement on last week so a course PB by 13 seconds in 25:14. God knows how I did that, and God knows what was going on with the Garmin telling me I was running 6 minutes per k for a large chunk of the run, I certainly didn’t run a sub 4 one to make up the deficit…

Well, am sure when feeling better and without Twilight Zone things happening, should be able to get that time down on future runs and need to work on those hills!

Did a 2k warmup that felt easy paced enough, but was actually 5:25 and 5:20 – so not far off 10k race pace! But it felt sustainable, more like a jog – be interesting to see if I can keep that up in my upcoming Salford 10k race!

Anyway then did 5×800m with the following splits:

3:18
3:34
3:16
3:37
3:21

Didn’t manage to run any quicker than my last intervals session (apart from the Garmin showing best speed as sub 3 mins/k!!!) but over the 5 intervals my average pace has gone up a notch – and looking at it, I was running at just over 21 minute 5k pace for 4k, even with breaks, this astonishes me a bit, and has me wondering if at some point I will be able to do that over 5k, and sustain it? I also remember easing back on the throttle a bit in the penultimate interval, to save a bit for an all out final effort – and was running 45minute 10k pace fairly comfortably (at least compared to the 4 mins/k all out pace the rest of the intervals were at).

So last intervals session – 4:28/k, this one 4:16/k – definite improvement, and it did hurt, but I felt like I’d worked hard, and am starting to reap some rewards now I’ve upped the training intensity a little bit.

Jogged an easy 1.5k cooldown and could have kept going as still felt fresh

However, I managed 3 sub 5 minute k’s, and it’s so long since I ran like that, it will take time to learn how to pace it again – I do feel that I am coming back to fitness in leaps and bounds now, and won’t belong before I am challenging my 5k PB.

This run did hurt quite a bit though! But also felt good too, and was nice to run at pace again.