I woke with so much enthusiasm that I sort of leapt upwards, bashing my head on the ceiling and falling back with such force that the bed crashed through the floor into the kitchen below, where I lay dazed and motionless for some moments. Purposeful footsteps, and the door burst open. In strode a young Joanna Lumley wearing high heels, fishnet stockings, suspenders and not a lot else. “Naughty boys”, she purred, “need to be punished”.
Tragically, I really did wake up at that point.
I once sold Joanna Lumley a case of vintage Champagne In fact, I’ve sold it to her a thousand times. Once in reality, the rest in my daydreams. But you don’t want to hear about that.
Today was full of self-indulgent, guiltless pleasure. Nothing at all to do with M being away for the weekend. I was up and out for a fabulous run at 8:30, keen to use the new Garmin Forerunner that I picked up yesterday. The shop exchanged it without a fuss, which was a bit disappointing. The customer service revolution has its benefits I suppose, but I rather miss the days when you couldn’t get a replacement or a refund without first rolling up your sleeves and trading a few punches with the shop manager.
The weather was just sublime today. It’s easy to curse the winter, but when it wants to it can serve up running conditions that beat anything else you’ll come across throughout the year. The morning was cold and frosty, but sunny with it. Ideal for saying hello to the world.
It’s the first long weekend in the Hal Higdon training plan. The Novice schedule calls for 6 miles but I decided to repeat the last longish run I did a few weeks before Christmas: a shade under 7½ miles.
I chose to repeat it because I wanted to use the “virtual partner” feature on my GPS, and thought it would be a good idea to race against myself, by giving the virtual partner the time I managed previously. The idea is that you plug in a time and/or a pace and/or a distance, and after setting off you’re kept up to date with how you’re doing in comparison. Messages flash up: Speed Up! You’re 10 feet behind. Or Slow Down! You’re 150 feet ahead. They even provide a graphic, depicting two matchstick competitors to illustrate how well or badly you’re doing.
Another reason I chose this particular run to compete against was that I was slow that day, and I deliberately wanted to be slow today. It would be a good way to force myself to keep a stately, steady pace which is what the ‘LSD’ (long slow distance) weekend runs are supposed to be all about.
And it worked a treat. I kept around 100 feet ahead of my alter ego the entire time, eventually finishing a satisfying 40 seconds ahead of him.
Him? This gadget is becoming a living creature. I confess that I’ve even considered giving this electronic creature a name. But what? _paula is too predictable, and anyway it isn’t female. I’ve considered calling it _colin, for no better reason than that I work with a guy of that name who keeps himself (if no one else) entertained with remarks about “finding myself” now that I have a GPS, and hinting that I may be able to find my way to the kettle to make everyone a coffee, and… but you get the picture. A vengeful nomination. I also heard recently of someone whose cat was called Colin, and perhaps this has burned itself into my subconscious. All I know is that the name, should it happen at all, must begin with an underscore. But not a decision to be rushed.
This first week of training couldn’t have been better. I’ve done four runs (five if you include last Sunday, a day before the programme officially began). The four should amount to 15 modest miles in this first week, but I’ve done 17½. I even did some cross-training on Monday.
After this morning’s great run, it was off to the football to watch an ugly victory over Brighton. But a win nevertheless, followed by a gallon or so of decent ale and a Chinese takeaway. This must be as good as it gets.
Or is it? Hmmm. I wonder if Joanna Lumley is in the phonebook…?
