Author: Buck

Just noticed three different words have become links on my last blog. Not sure if I can undo this, but either way, I did not post them as links and unless I actually state that I have in future, please do not click on them.

Ta,

Buck.

I was listening to a classic rock radio station the other day, they were playing Bruce Springsteen’s Glory Days (I’m assuming that’s the title) and it set me to musing.

The premise of the song is he meets some high school chums, one of whom was an ace school sportsman, the other was a high school hottie who’s grown older and had kids etc. Both of them just keep banging on about their glory days.

It struck me that that’s bollocks.

I’ve finally taken the plunge. I don’t know if you remember I was looking at driving for Hermes 2 years ago. I went for the interview but was too nervous on the assessment. At the time I really wanted the job; straight trunking, no messing with the load, there and back, job’s a good ‘un. It was £9.75 ish then time and a third after 8 hours. Supposed to be the easiest driving job going.

Anyway, after the last time Ceva got rid of me (a few weeks ago) I kept my eyes open for Hermes jobs. A different agency to mine advertised the job so I applied. Ceva found me a different job and I’ve been doing 4 days a week doing crappy local deliveries of unstable loads of newspapers and magazines. Typically the new agency announced that Hermes were having an induction on one of my working days.

I was considering blagging the agency, so I could check out Hermes but then I realised I’d have to use my digicard in any driving assessment so Ceva would know what I’d been doing. Bugger.

This is another running related blog. Sorry. My life seems to go in obsessive spurts in one direction, followed by disinterest and active avoidance. This is one of the reasons I enter races, so I have to train.

I tried to stick to that training plan, starting last week.

It said start off with a 6 mile ‘easy’ run. I thought if I was doing a slow one I might as well up the incline on the tready. Such a mistake. Runner’s World said to train at 1% incline to simulate proper running, but then I went for a 10 mile road run (at 7.30 m/m pace) and my pulse was 153, the same as 6.30 m/m on the tready. That can’t be right.

I had set the bar for my best effort for 3 miles. It was a 6.30 m/m. It near killed me, but that was it, best effort. I then upped the pace to 6.20 and failed badly on two attempts on tired legs. As I said in my last blog I was going to rest for a day or two then try again. On Friday I warmed up, rested for a minute and gave myself a stern talking to. “Do. Or do not. There is not try. And there is no ‘do not’. Do it, fatlad.”

I set the pace at 6.15 and went for it.

I battered it! I kept the pace up for 5k (3.1 miles) to see what my best speed was for the distance, then dropped the speed (still sub 7!) for 2 miles to get my breath back, then did the last mile of 10k at 6.30!