Humble Pie

The past 2 weeks or so has all been about getting back to regular running and although there is not much to tell it's been interesting to see how much fitness I have lost, what impact the additional weight (8 pounds) will have and critically how quickly I can get back to some sort of fitness.

The first week back I had real problems getting back into a rhythm which was to be expected and to minimise any injury risk I decided that it was probably not a good idea to go out and run everyday although that was probably the best thing to do in hindsight.

The first couple of runs went ok, kept them to 35-40 mins in duration and pace wise just went with how I felt as I had little idea what shape I was in. After both runs of 4.5 and 3.5 miles I felt good enough to push the Saturday run out to 90 minutes...RED ALERT. What was I thinking..

I felt fine for the first 60 mins or so but the last 20 minutes were not nice I have to admit. I didn't hit any walls as such but I was not enjoying this whatsoever. I persevered and ended up with 87 mins of running with 9.3 miles on the Garmin. I cannot remember the last time I had a training run of that duration and distance in many a years. My half marathon PB is 1:32.

My pace was real easy in fact ridiculously slow and psychologically I felt heavy, tired and started thinking what the hell am I doing here. All negative stuff of course but I closed the run down, finished what I started and felt humbled that the journey back to fitness is going to be way tougher than I first thought it would be.

I ended up running 22.5 miles for the week and this week I again got out for 4 runs with a total of 24.4 miles. These stats are not important of course but with each run I am beginning to feel a little bit more like a runner again and obviously there is still a long way to go but for the first time on today's run I felt a surge of energy for the last 15 minutes of my run. Last mile and 0.7 miles was 8:15 pace and

Not sure where it came from but I believe the humble pie I ate earlier last week has just been absorbed by the runners body that is itching to come back.

16 Aug
               6.7 miles, 1:00:03, 8:59 pace,  avg HR 149
18 Aug
               4.7 miles, 40:18, 8:35 pace, avg HR 150

2 comments:

  1. Get back into it slowly fella and it will come back.

    ReplyDelete
  2. cheers sir. It's all about getting those long runs done and building up gradually as you say. Be good to meet up at a future race.

    ReplyDelete

Feel free to comment