Anger management

I'm not a person who gets angry easily, in fact it's pretty damn rare. But this week, I've managed to spend a couple of days incandescent with rage, kicked off by some mad policies at my workplace, related to my intention to move on to a new role, and then my next door neighbour's builder attaching a building to a wall on my property without permission. On Tuesday night I had more than had enough and was off planning to emigrate to New Zealand and set up on a mountainside with a small herd of goats.

Thankfully, I didn't do anything rash and lifestyle impacting in the heat of the moment and the latter part of the week has given me time to take stock and calm down.

Midweek was also very busy with travelling, so I managed to run Monday and Friday only - so far - early mornings and just being knackered in the evening put paid to anything on Tuesday through Thursday. I might get a couple of miles in over the weekend to try to make up the difference. That said, today's run was something special.

I exited the house and decided that I needed to edge up again from 4 miles. However, I didn't want to set a target distance, I wanted to set a target time of 40 minutes, and run that at an easy pace. So, after a moment of re-mapping my route, I set off in the opposite direction from normal, planning a 9:30 mile pace for 40 minutes. This would bring me in at about four-and-a bit miles. Although I started off with a little stiffness in the legs, mile 2 had an I-could-run-this-pace-all-day feel to it, and with a long flat segment between miles 3 and 4 started what might have been an in-the-zone-ness I've heard talked about before I had to wake up again to avoid getting knocked down on a main road.

As I approached the end of mile 4, I was feeling just great. I didn't want to stop so headed on past the top-end of our road and added on another mile, finishing in 47:23. What's more, I still felt strong. This might be a combination of the benefit of 4 rest days, if such a benefit exists, and the selected lower pace.

So this weeks training so far:

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Mon: 4.01 miles, 35:52 minutes 8:57 pace. 7C HRAve:149 HRMax:162
Fri: 5.03 miles, 47:23 minutes 9:25 pace. 7C HRAve:153 HRMax:191

I think my HRM was having it's own bad day this morning as I don't think the Max figure is any way right, and this probably brought my average up from about 148 (at a guess).

So as the week is ending, I'm now back to my normal calmer demeanor. I've re-evaluated my expectations - I'm probably going to be disappointed over something - and know what my options are. And I might squeeze in those few miles in over the weekend.

One last thing for this post. Whilst on a rare visit to the office this week, one of my colleagues, Ranjit, approached me sheepishly with a sponsor form. Of course, I had no problems sponsoring him for a 10K in Manchester in 2 weeks and we had a great chat about shoes, injuries and training. There were a fair few parallels and I knew he must also be listening to Fdip as he's an avid podcast listener too. It was just weird to find someone I've worked with for a good 5 years has essentially gone through the same stuff that I have, with the same influences and at the same time, but completely independently.

All the best.

Mr Stumble.