Thursday 12 May 2016

From Tranquill Woods to Track Night!

Hello blog lovers

Double up time again.  Thursday morning run and Track Night, I think I am officially one sausage roll short of a picnic.  Who else does that, nope, don't tell me, you all do!  All runners run in the morning and then again in the evening, it's obvious!

Anyway, this morning. what a lovely sunny morning we had to run in.  There were loads of runners at the rec, DiscoRich had a huge group, in mine there were 6 of us.  Me, Janet, ZippySherry, Vishali, Debbie and Geena.  It's going to be a nice, warm run.  My route was fairly simple, left, then down and up Botany Bay Lane, and and right along the bridle path.  I am 100% sure I know where the path is that I want to take to go through the housing estate, 100% sure!

It had been raining all day yesterday and it was rather sticky underfoot in places.  I was pleased I changed my shoes!  Poor Geenas shoes were getting a baptism of fire.....well mud!  I should have got a before and after picture of her very bright orange trainers!  We picked our way across the bottom of the woods before finally running down and then all the way up!  The sun was smiling sweetly!  The sweat was pouring out of every orifice of me, I am sure!

ZippySherry and Geena seemed to be eating up the hill, as if it's just a mere nuisance that its there!  Me and Janet were flagging at the back!  We were still enjoying it.  It's a social thing as well as a keep fit thing!  That's what we say!  Races are for race days, training is on training days, working hard, TRACK!  We ran along the top of the woods and I immediately recognised the path that I wanted to take!  With just a quick check with the girls, just to make sure, we started to run along it.  Even Zippy said that it looks different when you come across it at a different angle!

The run up through the estate on the road was tough going, no shade to speak of and it was all uphill!  Then after a little break we crossed over to run through Scadbury.  We ran through here, it seemed to have gone really quickly through here.  I saw an opening on the other side road, I am not sure how I missed this!  Instead of continuing along the pavements and then crossing over by the crossing, we could cross back over the road here and continue our run in the woods instead.!  Why did I miss this! And, one big bonus, we have to pass b the woodmans house!

Well, we didn't actually pass it, we got to it and then I decided that we should have a look down Rhododendron corridor, just to see if anything is in bloom yet!  There were some blooming in peoples gardens, but as Zippy said, there is a lot more sunlight on those than on these ones in the woods!  So although we saw one solitary flower, there were nothing else!

I am still a bit unsure of which way to once we get past the corridor but my guess work seems to pay off.  We came across some landmarks that I remember, a bench, a little hill. but Im not sure, whether this tree was before or after the bench, but it's a fantastic looking tree and it just called out for a photo shoot!  Here take a look

 We found the right path again and we once again joined the middle path that leads to Dog Poo ally!  Oh and just one more pic, this one



It was a great run, with some great company, and Geenas shoes were just classic 'Thursday Morning blessed' shoes by the time we came out!

Geeky stats


Track Night

I had read on our Facebook page what was going to be happening, so I knew more or less what to expect.  I arrive just a couple of minutes late and so missed the briefing!  But the first bit PhysioMike had repeated, it was to do 2  x 800m with a 90 sec rest in between.  But then when Mike saw me and so of the other lower groups he said that groups 1-3 need only do 1 x 800m.  So once I had done that then I would enquire what was next.

It's a sprinting type session, and it was useful if you had a Garmin or other sports watch to keep an eye on how fast your 5k could be, I think that is what PhysioMike had said.  Anyway, CoachHels was doing the warm up session, she had us balancing on on leg for what seemed like ages!  I was wondering if she was going to do the same after the session, just to see if we had worked hard enough!  If we fell over straight away then we had totally exhausted ourselves!

There seemed to be so many PWR's all wanting to improve their speed, there must have been 30 or so people!  A lot more than during the Marathon training months.  Plus it was good to see some first time trackers as well, and they were in the lower numbered groups too! So I wasn't the only one that was going to be lapped, buzzed and eating dust from the really fast runners anymore!

After the 800 we were to do 4 x 400 m.  It's getting less, but now we have to do that 4 times.  It's ok, we are still on track to do all that is asked of us in our group. It's not as much as the faster runners, but then we do have to finish at 9:00 and it will be so much nicer if we all manage to finish at the same time!

I could see that I was getting slower with each 400 m and but I kept trying to to keep the same pace.  After that, yup, you guessed it, we had to do 6 200 m. with 60 sec rest between.  By the time of the last 2 x 200 I really wanted to say, 'Nah, I've done enough' I even said to the girls "I wasn't to quit now" But then Sarah said "Don't quit until you're done" or something like that!  And I thought about it. Heck yes Old Girl, get your ass back out there and do this last lap!  After all, that will be the end of the session then!  So I ran to the 200 m rested for 60 and then finished the last 200m.  Feeling totally exhausted I was pleased that I had done it.  Then I heard, "Ok so just do one rep of 100m, just walk down to the end and sprint back"  PhysicoMike explained!  What, more I thought I had done it!  "I can't do that" I said to the girls, "I am really done now" and I watched them as they walked up to the 100m start line! "Sod it, get up there woman" I said to myself and I followed them up.  We got in lane, the girls were ready to start their Garmins and then we counted do 3.....2......1.....go!  We ran, sprinted, towards the throng of people, all those that had completed their session. We ran passed PhysioMike "Thats it keep it going, relax though shoulders, this is the fastest you've ran all evening he said"  And I think it was, this truly was the end of our session.  No more running to be done, I had done all that was asked of group 1-3 members! YES!  I was feeling quite pleased with myself, I didn't quit!  I had finished the session!


Geeky stats! 


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