Well hello one all the sick and able alike.
Now I know this is going to jinx me but somehow despite all the bugs this year I have had not the slightest sniffle all winter. So wishing you al well and a speedy recovery.
I held off posting until I'd done a couple of more runs and experimented with mixing up my runs so here are the scores from the Oirish jury.
Weds - Hill session.
Now this was "fun", a few things to consider here.
I love hills going up, hate them going down.
My timing system was paused for about a mile midway causing me to lose track of time and distance.
This was my first attempt at pacing myself.
I very easily get carried away.
The plan was good, two roads a mile long running parrelel connected by a series of side roads in a kind of grid all of which are hilly, perfect so I ran a mile trying to force myself to warm up and slow down before running up the first hill, back down and then along to the next junction and repeated up and down and along. In all 7 times out and 7 times back and then a warm down.
I mapped it out at a shade over 7.5 miles (see getting carried away) The whole shebang taking me 1:06:23. All of which I found fairly comfortable. The only problem was the continuous running up and down outside a primary school playground at lunchtime 8 times as the school is between two of these side roads.
Which brings me to this mornings little adventure. My first attempt really to pace myself and to get a feel what different paces feel like. Here are my splits:
Mile 1 8:37 I was trying for 10 and this felt slow so god knows what a 10 minute mile is.
Mile 2 7:36 Quickened up a little, to a pace I felt I was pushing at and included a sodding great hill I'd forgotten about
Mile 3 8:38 A recovery pace(?)
Mile 4 9:00 An even bigger sodding hill and country drivers trying to ram me into bushes I was concentrating on staying alive and was up and down banks which must be great cross training
Mile 5 06:43 Fully refreshed and safely on a bridlepath I opened up, this was tiring
Mile 6 09:16 A warm down and gentle canter home, well the paper shop.
To be honest I have no idea if these runs were good, bad, indifferent or pointless although the change was good and rather than switching off I found myself concentrating. It is going to take a while to get a hang of pacing different tempos but we can only try.
All feedback will be gratefully received.
Far more importantly I know you wanted to know how Me and Mrs.Oirish enjoted Valentine's. Well it went down a storm. Wednesday I walked to the posh jewellers on the corner and caught the bus to the out of town shopping village where I purchased Sports Direct's finest running shoes, a sports bra (looks like a stunt parachute but I was mistaken) and yards of pink lycra, yards and yards.
Well the look on her face when she opened it up was a joy to behold. You see I built the tension, first I handed her a small velvet box and to be honest I could of easily just got her that because her eyes lit up like bonfire night when I handed it to her but no there was more....... inside the box was a key, a mystery key. You could tell it was a mystery because she looked very confused when she openend it.
"Tis the shed key" I announced and I don't know if she'd been peeking but I swear I saw a tear welling in the corner of her eye. Together we went to the shed and retrieved her gift wrapped presents. Back indoors she opened her trainers first and boy oh boy was she overjoyed, in delight she took one in each hand and threw them in the air, so overcome with emotion was she that she couldn't bring herself to open the other presents and shot out of the room.
Several hours later after she had compose
