Time: 19:30 Hrs
Conditions: Windy, dry, COLD
Circuit: (tonights' times in brackets)
Warm up (2 x 400 metres, gentle jog untimed)
2 x 200 metres (00:40, 00:40)
1 x 1000 metres (04:38)
6 x 200 metres (00:40, 00:37, 00:34, 00:38, 00:38, 00:40)
1 x 1000 metres (04:54)
2 x 300 metres (01:17, 01:14)
1 x mile (4 laps) (08:09)
I blame the M&Ms.
I felt horribly tired all day. During the afternoon I started to look ahead to tonights' track session with a growing sense of unease. I left my wallet at home today (I do this once a year without fail) managed to bum a sandwich off a colleague for lunch and fatally failed to chow down late afternoon. Heading home in the truck it dawned on me that I couldn't tuck into Mrs Sweders' finest Lasagne when I got home. Well, I could, but I'd run like Johny Vegas in diving boots through quicksand if I ate that much that late. I started to panic - what will happen if I eat nothing before the session? Is there anything in the truck I can eat?
Aha! A half-consumed family pack of peanut M&Ms, skulking in the compartment between driver and passenger seat. I'm saved. I dutifully finished off the pack, finding new and exciting ways to eat a peanut M&M - from the simple, devastating crunch, to the slow suck of the outer coating followed by the gentle melting of the chocolate, leaving the naked, un-salted peanut . . . crunch crucnch crunch.
I got home, chatted with the family and pottered about . . . but I still felt knackered. On with the lycra, on with the running shoes (complete with caked on downland mud ), grab the water bottle, suck in the gut in front of the mirror . . . and exhale. Absolutely cream crackered.
I realise this is defeatism; I'd convinced myself all day long I was going to have a bad session, and by God I wasn't going to let myself down by perking up at the last minute. Back into the truck as Alan Green lamented the propsects for tonights' cup tie at Turfmoor, and I set off for Withdean, a small yet perfectly formed rain-cloud hovering just above my head.
The warm-up laps felt OK, and I loosened up a little. The first 200s felt fine, each in 40 seconds dead - a comfortable, respectible pace. Then the first K - oh, so very ugly. Set off way too fast, slowed up far to much, finished sucking wind like an extra from SuperSize Me running for the bus . Style, rythmn, control . . . none of these had accompanied me this evening. Half way through the 6 x 200s I went potty, leading off and going hell for leather to see how fast I could go. I actually thought 'what the hell are you doing?' as I thrashed, eyeballs out, around the inside lane. 34 seconds and no-one passed me. Boy am I clever! Having an ordinary session, knackered before I fell out of bed this morning so I morph into Micheal Johnson with a further 40 minutes of the session to go. Out-bloody-standing.
Unsurprisingly the session tailed off, capped by a +8 minute mile to finish, exacly one week after I'd crowed about never exceeding 8 minutes for the mile in this session again. Oh pride, ye cometh before a fall! (Sorry Will).
But you know what? All this whinging and self-pity aside, I did it; I completed the session. I came up with a miriad of totally valid reasons not to, including Mrs Sweder saying (non too helpfully) 'don't go if you're not feeling up to it'. It was too cold, my shoulders ached, I got twinges in my calves, loss of will to live, blah blah blah . . . but I did it. After all, it's just a bad day at the office. End of. Move on, nothing to see here.
As I plodded resolutely around the Withdean track to complete the last mile I glanced up at the seats in the main stand. A couple of ladies, young girls really, had opted out of the last part of the session and were chatting away. And tough as it was, and much though I'd rather have curled up to watch Burnley dump Liverpool out of the FA Cup tonight
, I smiled and kicked on. It's a night to tick the box on the schedule and move on.
JANUARY 2005 - Back in Action
