Snow, snow, quick quick snow…
How startling to wake up and find the world suddenly white. I expected it to reduce my lunchtime run to a nervous plod but remarkably, I did my usual 3½ miles at an average 10:01 mile pace which for me is quick. The quickest training run for seven months.
It was a bizarre outcome: it didn’t seem any faster than normal. If anything, the opposite, as I was constantly dodging the patches of slippery snow and ice, and the slush. I’m beginning to enjoy the company of _colin, the ‘virtual partner’ hiding in my Garmin Forerunner. I set up a race against him where I’d have to do 11 minute miles to pip him at the post, thinking that this was a reasonable time for the conditions. But from the off I was 100, 200 feet ahead, and in the last stretch, had a massive 0.13 mile lead. What a good tool this is. The Timex is well worth having too, but I just prefer the compactness of the Forerunner and the range of features (though it has no heart rate monitor, like its rival).
Looks like I’ll soon be joining a running club: I promised myself this a month or two ago, but only once I’d got back down to 10 minute miles and had lost 10 pounds in weight. Both of those targets have just about been reached now. The next problem will be which one to join. It’s a toss-up between staying late at work and joining up with the Serpentine Running Club (the Serpies) in Hyde Park, or leaving work early to get back to Reading for the big Road Runners club. Both meet on Wednesday and neither is ideal.
A third option is the much smaller local club which meets up on Tuesday and Thursday for a five mile run. I like that idea, even though they won’t have a lot of facilities. More developments soon.
