THE GOOD BUCK

It seemed adding long runs was the answer to everything. I did one 22 mile run, rested, ran for a whole hour at race pace. I did another, rested, ran for an hour and a half at race pace!

Incredible!

I was so pleased. My training had gone from 4 miles race pace then stopping for rests to 13 miles non-stop in the space of a week. You’ll note the past tense. I tried for another 22 mile run the day after and my knees and shins were killing me. I gave up and turned around at 4½ miles. It was painful and slow and I was worried that I was going to sustain a serious injury.

I’m getting there, people. My new strategy is showing real results after only 3 runs. It’s hard to get the tready time when I’m working. I did my first attempt at an hour at race pace of 6.45 m/m, managed 3 miles (3 min rest) something like 1 mile, rest, etc up to 6.25 miles in the hour. And that was tough. The next time (on tired legs) I did 2½ miles, rest, 1½ miles (at too fast speed), rest, etc  making 7 and a bit miles.

Today, with legs as fresh as a daisy, I did 4 miles, 3 min rest, 2 miles, 2 min rest, 50 seconds rest a bit over half a mile. Anyway, the point is; I ran 4 miles before my first breather, then 2 miles. In total, a smidge over 8 miles in the hour. That, my friend, is progress.

The best bits were the periods where I was thinking, ‘this ain’t so bad, I can keep this up all day’. Then my breathing got ragged and I was really battling to make an arbitrary point before stopping. This is also good. By saying at 20 minutes ‘keep going fat lad’ and pushing it really hard for the last 4 or 5 minutes just to keep going, I’m strengthening my legs and my willpower.

You might not have been able to see those link/ adverts, I can’t see them now. Turns out is was malware on my computer, not on the blog itself. Apparently the free version of Avira antivirus doesn’t protect against malware. It does a sterling, and I repeat, free job on viruses, as the name suggests, but you either have to pay for the pro or get other malware protection.

Anyway, all sorted now. I think. You can stand down from blog defcon one.

Cheers,

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.