The end of Week 19 (counting back from Boston). I got the 3 key runs in, and the 3 cross-training gym sessions. Sounds great, yet the week didn’t go quite as planned.
With M away Monday and Tuesday, I managed to resist the lure of alcohol the first night, but slipped out to the pub on Tuesday, hoping in vain to see Chelsea chased out of the Champions League by a bunch of plucky Transylvanians. The London Pride never tasted richer or more satisfying, but I didn’t overdo it. Yet it was still enough to disrupt my routine, and presented me with the first week in 2 months when my weight didn’t dip to a new low. This shameful statistic was aided by another pub visit on Friday, followed by a Chinese meal and some fizzy Australian wine.
So be it; man cannot live by Marks & Spencer’s layered prawn salads alone.
The week was another triumph for the gym. Ordinarily I would have had no appetite for a run on Wednesday or Saturday, but despite having a slightly fuzzy head on Wednesday, and a fair old hangover on Satuday, I managed to argue myself into popping round the corner for an hour of panting cardio-vascular on the elliptical, the stepper, the static bike, and the rowing machine. Yesterday I even added a half hour of weights to boost the punishment index.
Today I sat in my little office, working. I have a ton of stuff to try to get finished, and it looks like seven-day weeks from here to eternity. I’d just about decided that I would give my long run a miss this week until some friendly voice whispered the advice I needed, and I was up and away.
It’s the sort of running day I hate. No, nothing to do with temperature or rain or wind or sleet. I can handle all that cold and wet stuff. It’s this wintry greyness, so typical of the last 6 weeks of the year, that corrodes the spirit. Those featureless, dismal skies and the anaemic afternoons they produce. I find them utterly depressing. Despite this, I aim to get in a reasonable distance. I have no target, but I am aware that this is my step-back week, so anything over 8 miles will do just fine.
I head for the canal, and trudge the damp and muddy path for a couple of miles before heading off towards my 6 hills. The first is the killer 1 in 4, and I nearly don’t make it to the top without walking. I just manage to cling onto something I can reasonably call a running motion as I struggle to the summit. I wonder if it’s a good thing to have the bad one come first. Does it help to get it over with early? Or does the strain affect everything that comes after it? I don’t know. It would be a right bastard wherever it happened.
I should have got out earlier. By the time I reached the second clump of hills, it was dark, and the twisting, narrow roads were treacherous. I could see the headlights of every approaching car, but they couldn’t see me until they’d rounded the bend and spotted this semi-naked man behaving suspiciously by the side of the pavement-less road. It must look like I’m trying to hide, but I’m just sort of shrinking into the bushes to avoid turning into a bloody splodge of flattened road-kill.
Avoiding death was a handy outcome, but the downside of my bush jumping was a slower-than-hoped-for overall pace. That disappointment was largely erased by the flat final mile of the 9.71 that I managed. Despite the effort expended on the hills and the distance, the pace of that final mile was by far the fastest of the afternoon. It felt astonishingly comfortable, and it really shouldn’t have done.
Good omen.
