I was teaching last Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so spent yesterday trying my hardest to get some time off and catch up in my office. So with only two weeks gone of the new year, I am a day late with my weekly running report.
The past week was actually lower mileage than the previous week, and this week that I am on starts adding mileage and has some of my least favourite interval sessions, but I’ll tell you about that in next week’s report.
I leave my house to run by 6am at the latest, and with the runs being shortish at the start of a marathon training programme, I am home well before it gets light currently. I really like running in the darkness of the early morning hours, especially when it is really cold and clear because I get to run along the sea front with a backdrop of stars filling the sky.
This past week, a couple of foxes ran off the beach right in front of me which was cool. Usually, I pass a couple of single foxes in my neighbourhood, but never before on the beach. At the end of last year, I did some early morning runs on dark trails close to me and when wearing my head torch a foxes eyes reflect and shine brightly in the woods which I found quite eery. However, these guys running in off the beach were playful and friendly.
The darkness does have a slight downside and that is that a couple of the paths I take on my runs are not well lit. On an icy morning this week, upon trying to equal out my pace by bombing down a hill to make up some time from a slow uphill earlier in the run, I slipped on a wet.icy floor that I had not seen in the darkness and bruised my backside. I suppose the darkness ensured that no-one saw this, but I sure felt it.
Though you can see all my runs at Strava if you so wish, here is last week’s mileage and runs:
Mon 4M (approx 35 mins) easy (8m45s/mile)
Tue 4M (33 mins) slow with a few gentle strides (8m15s/mile)
Wed 5M (40 mins) slow (8m/mile)
Thu 4M (30 mins) steady (7m30s/mile)
Fri Rest
Sat 5M (42 mins) easy or parkrun (8m25s/mile)
Sun 12M (100 mins) slow (8m20s/mile)
My twitter feed and Facebook newsfeed is filled with runners discussing the wind. This morning for my Tuesday intervals, the wind ensured that I was never going to get any even splits, so I did my best and used a brilliant cognitive strategy for helping run in the wind.
Later on this week, I’ll be back with a full write up of that process. Until then, happy running and bye for now….
