Thursday 26 January 2017

Double Thursday - I'm On Fire!

Hello blog lovers

My goodness, wasn't it cold this morning!  What I couldn't understand is why I wasn't scrapping frost from my car to get to the rec! The temperature was reading -1 degrees in the car! Driving along to the rec I was thinking "Why, why are you out here, in the freezing cold? You are are only going to trip arse over tit again!"  It was this time last Thursday that I took m tumble in the woods!  I have this beautiful bruise now, but at least it's not hurting anymore!  And the aches in my arms where I supported myself from face planting the frozen mud had stopped as well! But I was still thinking 'Why?'  There is one thing that gets me to be totally lazy and that's the cold! I just don't like it!

So getting out to run is hard, but not the morning one, the evening run might be a bit tough.  As I was leading this morning its always easy to get me out! Rain, wind, snow or shine! Thank goodness that I became a leader!  The ladies I was led though are normally in the faster groups on a Tuesday, but Amy is coming back from injury and so is Diane!  They would normally run in the middle group on the Thursday!  As I have said before, (and I need to start to really take it on board myself!)  it's good to run with faster runners as it pushes you to try harder!  Well I hoped I did  that this morning, even in this blimmin cold! BRRRRR.

There were quite a few people missing from all the groups, the Facebook chat was full of apologies for people not being able to run this morning.  You can almost tell from they way they have put it that they really are sorry that they couldn't make it, mind you, there was one who went dog walking first then wimped out of running because it was cold.....I shall name no names!!

The route I had planned was the middle path, straight up, get the hill over and done with!  We all set off together, first the middle group, just two of them, Michelle and Emma, then followed us, just the three of us, followed by the fast group behind us, only three of them too.  It really was just a smattering of runners this morning!  The faster runners, Phil, Ian and another chap whose name I don't recall, soon took over us.  All three groups were heading into the woods, and all three groups were running up the middle path!  The other two groups soon disappeared from our sight as we ran on up the hill!  I really do try and enjoy running up hills, I try to think of pleasant things, of thinner, fitter thighs, but I just can no feel the love!  I just glare at the hill, wanting to take a sledge hammer to it, and pound it down to its a flat as the stick thin models chests that we are all supposed to be wanting to be like!  (not me though, I like my curves).  Up the hill we went!  Me puffing and glaring at the path, hating every centimetre of its assent.  I was really pleased when we got to the top.  The other two ladies were still just chatting away, they didn't even sound out of breath!

I had it mind to take the path that leads out into the housing estate, but I just knew that we would be back too quickly to the rec.  We were running and walking, the ground was very uneven in places, a hundred frozen footprints that used to be soggy, squishy mud! We walked over those bits too, all of us still having fresh memories of our individuals falls! We passed the place where I took my fall last week, the offending root or branch still sticking up it, like a trap, for any unsuspecting runners! I made sure I took the other path this time!

Up the hill again, running as much of it as I can, the girls were up there already!  I say I am the leader, but actually I am the navigator, Amy had no idea where she was, I think Diane knows these woods so she did.  I took them along the path at the back of the school and then up again (more darn blimmin' hills) to the road.  I felt sure that Amy would recognise where we were once we started running along to the pub. The school kids were out, don't they do lessons anymore? I don't remember being allowed off the school premises during break time, even in secondary school.  These days they seem to wonder in and out when they feel like it!

We continued along the road to the end and turned right, ran along there to the end.  Back into the woods after that!  Amy and Diane crossed the road first, I held back for the traffic.  There I was freezing waiting for any one of the drivers to stop to let me cross the road, do you think they would let that happen? No!  I tried looking freezing (which wasn't hard actually) to try the sympathy approach, but still they drove past.  A white van eventually stopped to let me go, I feel only because there was build of of traffic and he would have had to have stopped anyway!

Through Scadbury park was lovely though.  Not too much frozen footprints to negotiate and the we crossed over Leesons hill, again waiting for traffic to let us go by!  We also had to cross back over to the other side of the road to get back into Petts Wood.  This is where Diane became mother hen and ushed me safely across the road, (I would have stopped first, looked at how fast the car was travelling, calculated if I had enough time to cross, double checked my calculations as I'm useless at numbers and then crossed) - and then get frozen again!  We were nearly at the end of our run, with just the run all the way to the rail lines and then down to Dog Poo ally!

It was a great run, probably a little slower for the other two, but I think enough for me, knowing that I am planning on doing track tonight as well!  I will really have to try my hardest tonight! As we ran along Crossways Michelle and Emma came back as well, perfectly timed that we finished the run together!

Geeky stats.


Track Thursday!

So no pressure to be a track today! Nope, none whatsoever! Well apart from this......
Moosh On Fire!

PhysioMikeTheMod did this to motivate all of us to get out there and do it!  The thing is, if it was too cold I may have had to try and find an excuse not to go! This evening when the dad came to collect his child he said "Already minus 2 out there!" There, right there was my excuse to stay in......but for that photo!  The pressure to go....I don't suppose PhysioMikeTheMod realised that it has caused my GOOD than harm!  Yes, he's done it, he has motivated me to get out there and go like hell fire!

I was ready to go, to be honest, I didn't get out of my running clothes from this morning!! Dirty mare, I reasoned with myself that as I am ready, I really need to go out there and do it, create fire!  Lets see what I can do!  I got in my car and started to defrost my windows!  This is not a good start!  "You're out here now Old Girl, you've had your running clothes on all day, so make it worthwhile not get out of them!" I said to myself!  Eventually I could see out of the windows and started the drive to Norman Park Track. "What are you doing, it's freezing!" I yelled at myself! "Crazy" I really do not like cold!  I dislike cold more than I dislike running up hills!  I blame my mother, God rest her.  Apparently way back in the early 60's it was perfectly normal to wrap your baby up and put them in their pram with that plastic cover over, and leave them in the garden for a 'bit of fresh air'!  Really?  Summer time maybe, but I was born in November!!  It was particularly cold that year too!

When I got to the track there was a young lady there doing track for the first time, Michelle, she was a bit nervous!  There really is no reason to be nervous, In fact track is the least intimidating of all the runs that I do!  Because track is all about what you put into it!  Yes there are the speedsters, but they just run pass you, you can be sure they won't need to wait for you because you are all contained at the track.  PhysioMikeTheMod makes sure that he puts the speedsters through their paces, and then gives the slower runners a different goal to get to.  It really works well, everyone is challenged to do their best.  I am sure Michelle will enjoy it and get the feel of it.

This evenings sessions was a 15 minute tempo run, with a rest for 90 seconds and then 8x800m for the speedsters and 5x800 for the mortals.  I will be one of the mortals, in spite of the superpower I posses in the picture above!  Oh, wouldn't it be good to be like that!  At least I would be warm! So the tempo run went well, a steady group 1 pace for the full 15 minutes!  I started to warm up towards the end of it!  Four times around the track, that's how many times I managed to get around the track in 15 minutes, I even timed it perfectly (again!) so that the 15 minutes ended when I go to the finish line!

Then it was the session, the 5x800 meters, that's twice around the track.  I think PhysioMikeTheMod said that it should be a bit quicker than what we had just done.  The first one I ran faster, I only touched on 12:14 m/mi for a second or two, most of it was 11;30 avg I should think. The second time was a bit better, I was pleased with that.  The last two... yes I know, I only did 4 reps,....were a bit slower but I still think there were faster than the tempo run!  I was done though, if I had tried to do another rep it would have been really slow.  I would have been nagging myself too much and then beat myself up because I couldn't keep it up!  I was already nagging on the very last lap, talking to myself!  It's the first sign you know!

I tell you what, as I said up above there, there is no need to feel nervous when you come and do track!  Everyone is just so supportive and encouraging!  It is PhysioMikeTheMod, and all the runners out on track that keeps me coming back each week.  On freezing -2 degree evenings, to come out running around on a track! The thine is, I don't even like laps, the laps at parkrun get's to me, I don't know why, but the track, it's different somehow!  Each lap I try to do my best!  Thanks PhysioMikeTheMod, thanks Stephen, John, Ali and just about everyone out there on the track!  Some how I come back from these sessions really happy......freezing my ass off....but happy!

Geeky stats, yes of course I do my garmin, it's a must!

 



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