2014

[marathondan]

Firstly, a truly disastrous start to the month. Imagine the worst running-related thing that could happen to me. Yep, that's right. Last week my laptop hard drive ground to a halt and had to be replaced. Of course, all my personal files were backed up to Google Drive. Except I found that a certain file hadn't synced since sometime in June. Which file, you ask? But you already know - my running spreadsheet. 6 weeks' data gone.

Fortunately I'd posted my June total on here, and my July running has been delightfully consistent, so I was able to reconstruct a reasonable approximation of the runs. Phew! As I've mentioned, these early morning runs are quite ephemeral - by mid-morning I'm wondering whether I really was out there in a dewy field at 6am, or if it was just a dream. Some hard numbers in a spreadsheet (or on a blog) give me something to feel good about. So don't mock me too much. Never mind that those "hard numbers" are really just a series of tiny magnetic charges on my laptop, or even more strangely in a server farm goodness knows where.

So, my two months of gentle, exploratory running are over. Time to push things forward. The July total was 24 miles (or maybe a bit more - damn you, google drive!). There was a wobble at the start of the month, but I've now had three weeks of a super-solid routine - three runs and three workouts, all before breakfast. Inexplicably, I'm actually enjoying these sessions, and they don't feel like a chore. Finding an upper body exercise routine that I can stick to has been something of a holy grail for me. I'm hoping that this could become a life-changing habit that sticks, in much the same way that taking up running was, 13 years ago.

Monday morning I ran my lap of the field and then continued up to Mr Clutch (he does so much) to pick up the car, a little over 4 miles in total, and for the first time in 8 months or so I pushed the pace a little. Then this morning I dusted off the Garmin and tried a proper tempo run. The pace was more akin to what I called an easy run a year ago (when I was right in a sweet spot, banging out a 5K PB and doing long-term damage to my tendons in the process). But it felt great - well, until the last mile anyway.

So, as a special treat to myself, I indulged in my favourite activity, and made a plan. I reckon, tendon permitting, I could work up to the Henley half in October. It may not work of course, I might hit a limit where the tendon starts to complain, in which case I'll back right off. But there's no point hanging around forever. Tentatively, once more into the breech, tally ho, and all that.

On the treatment front, you may recall that I'm going back to the physio for some deep tissue torture. Remarkably, I was able to get an appointment tomorrow, near work. Listen out for the screams.