October

[Sweder]

Well, this is a pretty picture. I set off this morning intent on putting in a decent shift. 
Running has been easy of late. No major niggles, no heaving collapses at the end of a session, no cramps. Perhaps I'd cracked the secret to the perfect regimen. I must write this down ...

But then, today. I set off at a fair clip. My RunKeeper tends to buzz more or less around the same spot every time I take this route - the trail along the bottom of The Bottom, right around the little dip before the side gate. Not today. I'd reached and passed the side gate. Blimey. The second buzz (they're every five minutes) usually arrives as I'm climbing the slope towards the racecourse road. Not today. I'd crossed the road and entered the next field, unleashed the hounds (no sheep in this field) and started the first of a series of thirty-second sprints. I flogged myself back up the Moyleman start, working hard, cheeks puffed out, sweat running freely, arms pumping. I hit the sheep field again, this time at the top, and set off on another series of sprints. This was tough! 

As I pulled up outside the house I felt a real glow, like hot metal pulled from a forge. Sweat poured off me. My Runkeeper informed me that my average pace was a shade over six minutes per kilometre, a good thirty seconds better than usual. And then the penny dropped. The scales fell from my eyes and I looked back at the last couple of months, a cold shadow falling over my tracks. 

I've been dialing it in. Knocking out junk miles, ticking off days on the calender without form or purpose. Run for run's sake, mileage for God's sake, as 10cc might have put it. Running hasn't become easy, it's become lazy. The reason CharlieCat is over the hills and far away is not just his own, undeniable improvement.
I've turned into a sloth. 

There's a half marathon with my name on it ten short weeks away. If I carry on as I am my running 'base' will be so wide I'll be lucky to get my ample buttocks to the start line. Ten weeks. Time to get real.