Do Or Die...

[Seafront Plodder]

On Monday I went on my last weekend’s long run. Yes I know, but what with tiling the kitchen I just ran out of time.

The back still ached, and I really had decided to make this one Brighton-half--or bust. I needed to put in some sort of long run with only two further weekends to go, and this was therefore crunch time.

I started off well enough, but sure enough after about two miles the lower back ache started again. This time however I decided not to stop but to see if I could run through it, thinking that either I’d do myself a more serious injury, or…….well just run it off.
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9 miles later and I called it a night as I was getting hungry!

The strongish wind was off the sea so that wasn’t a problem: this was by far my best run of the year, plodding up and down the seafront listening to the waves crashing onto the shingle. After the frustrations of this recent niggling injury-ette, I’m over the parrot Brian.

If only I could bottle it.

[El Gordo]

Just read your tale, SP, and RB's training log too, and I guess I just have to get out there myself. Am working from home today so I don't really have an excuse not to pop out for an hour.

B***ards....

[Seafront Plodder]

One of the benefits of being a plodder, is that it’s relatively easy to find a running partner who’s faster than you.

A friend of mine, with whom I did all my long runs for my London training this time last year, lives about 20 minutes drive away. He’s doing London again this year for JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) – a very worthy cause, but he is in need of a little motivation for the mid-week runs in the dark.

He’s faster than me, and perhaps more worryingly, appears to have mastered the art of negative splits, insofar as his slower first half of a run is my normal pace, but he’ll pick up the pace quite noticeably in the last quarter.

Last night he came over to my manor and we ran (not plodded) 6 miles, finishing with the longish hill I’ve referred to in previous dull entries.

This hill, coupled with his tendency to speed up towards the end really had me working as I chased his arse up that final hill. Although I finished some 10 seconds behind him there’s no doubt that without him I would have been considerably slower!

We might do this again: he has the commitment of driving to meeting someone to run with, and I get to go that little bit faster – and we had a couple of pints of Guinness afterwards. Result!! And no moaning from the old back either.