Saturday Afternoon 12 miler... kind of

After more filing of the bike frame on Saturday morning, I got myself in my running gear for my prearranged 12 miler round Richmond Park with someone that is actually going to be doing the marathon come April. I wasn't quite sure why I was doing it but with a couple of HM's coming up over the next couple of months, it couldn't hurt. I quick bit of checking before I headed out made me realise that the 12 miler would actually be a 13.42 miler as it would be 2 laps of the park but never mind, needs must.

I headed out and we were running a comfortable pace along the ups and downs of Richmond Park and frequently dodging the cyclists (on the pavements?!?), dogs, pushchairs, children and couples out walking. Along the last 1.3 miles of the first lap, I had a moment of clarity and worked something out. I wasn't even close to enjoying myself. It's not that I was finding it tough, it's just that I was still running on badly maintained paths, alongside roads and if I'm going to do that, I'd rather be doing my shorter quicker runs. I like my longer runs along the river. At least there are no cars. With half a mile to go, I was jogging extremely slowly, not at all out of breathe and had more interest in picking the dirt from my fingernails (blame the bike work) than where I was running.

Decision made. The car was parked at the end of lap 1 where my mate was waiting and having a drink. At that point, I said my goodbyes and went off home. 6.71 miles completed in a very long time! Some day's, I think it's better to cut your losses than try and continue and this was just one of those days. Now I'm off to find a 15 miler course for a run in 3 weeks time and this one won't involve Richmond Park or laps of any kind!

Training falls off the rails. Backwards. While upside down

So how do you deal with a situation in which you have one training weekend left before a half marathon and you've lost all motivation to put on your trainers?!? Yup, I bet inviting a mate down from the north, drinking too much and dragging his non running butt round Richmond Park wasn't top of your list either but alas, that's what I did!

Last time I checked, this thing formed some resemblance to a running blog so that is the part I will blog about and not the fact I stayed unbeaten on the pool table for 3 hours. No, no, that wouldn't be right! The running part had been arranged in advance and he'd been doing some 'training' to accommodate this part of the weekend. The plan was just under 6.5miles, around the towpath between Putney and Hammersmith bridges. That was until we went to the pub on Friday and decided that it would be a better idea to go to Richmond Park and run the loop. Just a little longer at around 7 miles but a nicer area in general to run in.

Richmond park is a loop. There is nothing to argue with here, it's fact. Just ask the 74000 cyclists and 23000 runners who appeared on a Saturday morning dressed an some quite amazing lycra in it's various forms. People use it for running, cycling, duathlon training, walking, hiking and probably some other things that I haven't worked out yet.

This is a map of the Richmond Park loop.



And this is what we actually ran!



There are some serious navigational issues going on there! So an extra 1.8miles than we thought. Getting completely and utterly lost by trying to avoid going out of the park and making one monumental wrong turn. It took us around an hour and a half with the walking, stopping and asking directions thrown in but it was pretty good. Northern bloke, to his credit did extremely well and more through stubbornness than fitness, wouldn't let himself walk unless we couldn't run due to the fact we didn't know which direction we were going or the terrain didn't allow it.

So to my own personal battle with running. I'm going to have a break from it. 4 weeks or so when I don't force myself to go out or feel guilty if I don't do a pre-arranged run. If I really fancy hitting the pavement then I will as this'll be a good thing but after next weeks Royal Parks HM, nothing until mid/end November. I want all the little annoying and niggly injuries to sort themselves and just want to enjoy it again and forcing my way through November isn't going to make that happen!

There will still be blogging as I think there may still be the odd run and to be honest, there's many other geeky hobbies I can bore people with blog about but lets take the pressure off and start to enjoy it again. Decision made! However, anyone thinking they need to push themselves through and pick up the pace should wander over to Fit Artists blog and join her for Octoberthon! Rather you than me though.

Slacking but not through laziness

I seem to have done a little damage to my hip although no-where near as much as Jogblog managed to do to her ankle but because of this (my hip, not Jogblog's ankle) I've only ran once since my Touch Rugby session. This was last Tuesday when myself and Lovely Girlfriend went to Richmond Park for a bit of exercise as it was a lovely evening. LG is going to be running her first ever 10k at the end of June so it's good for me to be training with somebody again as it hasn't been done since myself and eatingtrees trained for the Royal Parks half last year and frankly, I was starting to get bored of my own company.

Anyway, it consisted of a 1.5m run from the car to the hill, then we ran some hills for a bit before running back again. It was on this return leg that the pain really intensified to the point I had to stop because I was overcompensating so much, my left knee started aching too. Now the hills weren't what caused it as I'd noticed it a week or so before but they certainly didn't help. It's now the following Monday and there's still a little ache on the hip but nothing too bad. However, because the BUPA 10k costs a sodding fortune and I don't want to waste that money, I'm not going to run until then and then just try and get round. I don't have a PB for a 10k as such as I've only done one race before and all I can remember is that I finished in 53:xx so the plan as to go under 53mins. Unlikely now which is a pain but I'll give it a go anyway.

Now not being able to do either Touch or running for the past week, I've had to do a couple of things to keep the week interesting. So I've, in order:

a)Looked at a new car
b)Went to an Album Launch Gig
c)Went for many, many drinks to celebrate LG's and another friends birthday
d)Test drove new car
e)Bought new car
f)Went to Cambridge and camped in an airfield
g)Trained to jump out of a plane for LG's birthday
h)Didn't jump out a plane as we have tremendously crap weather in this country
i)Went out for a meal for LG's birthday
j)Slept

See, I've been doing other things and here's a picture of the new beast! We pick it up on Thursday and I can't wait. It may only be a Citroen to some people but as we've been driving a P-reg Clio, this thing's going to feel like a Rolls Royce!!