Hitting the streets

Apologies for the delay in posting. There are reasons but really, no excuses.

Last week saw two bike excursions around our local streets, the third being cancelled due to a late night and never properly rescheduled. Temperatures on the second early excursion were down to 8C / 47F and I quickly wished I'd worn more than a T shirt and shorts. However, with a clear blue sky and a low mist across the parkland I rode by, I managed to keep my mind off my cold arms whilst wishing I'd brought a camera to catch the light.

This morning, however, I bit the bullet and headed out for a run. And it felt soooo good. Temperature was about the same at 8C, but cloudy and pretty humid for the temperature, but given my pace is a lot slower running than cycling, there was no issue with getting cold.

I'd decided to easy back in, starting with 6:1 run:walk intervals and see how things go. First stretching using one of the physio techniques described previously and then with a warm up fast-ish walk to the end of the road before starting the first interval. I think that this proved a reasonable starting point, I don't think I broke anything during the run although my right foot is complaining a little around my fallen arches - but this is nothing new.

The route was my original and more hilly route - not what I'd intended to take when I started out, but I had one of those moments where I had 10 yards of indecision about "do I go straight on or left?" between the two courses, and choose left - my original route. I think this was due to several factors - not least that last time I pulled my calf when trying the new route - but also that my original route is just "comfortable" and has fewer concrete pavements.

It was good to catch up with the squirrels and cats again, running giving more time to observe early morning feline and, well, rodent behaviour than is afforded by the bike.

At the top of the circuit, I came across 3 people, seeming like parents and their daughter consoling each other quietly at the end of their driveway. It was a strange moment, as I approached the parents hugged and began to return to their house, whilst the young woman sat on the stone wall for a moment and looked up at me. I couldn't hold her gaze and had to glance away, suddenly feeling I was intruding, just running by. I've no idea what had happened, but there was a lot of sadness there.

This gave me plenty to mull over for the remaining section and I finished the run with an average 9:58/mile pace (I lost some time waiting for a gap in traffic to cross a main road, twice) covering 2.55 miles.

I'm seeing if I can pause Mr Garmin whilst using the interval trainer function and it still keeping the interval times, which will allow me to cross busy roads and not "lose" the running time.

My plan from here is to do another run at 6:1 on Thursday and then move back up to 8:1 this weekend, from there to 10:1 by the end of next week and hopefully onwards to the goal!

Mr Stumble