Theresas training

So last week (15/05/06 – 21/05/06) was a low mileage
week – only 17.2 miles covered in the week. This week
has been a bit higher (22/05/06 – 28/05/06) as I
managed to run about 22.85 miles (although the quality
was variable…………..)

On Tuesday 23rd I’d been running a training course at
work and had to dash back to make it to club – just
about on time. Luckily Sheila K was also late so we
set out for a run together after the other ladies had
headed off. I call it run…..but I think that would
probably be a breach of the trade descriptions act.
Actually we went for a shuffle – slightly faster than
walking pace – around the beach and cut back across
and round John Muir, without actually running through
any of the trees. We were both a bit knackered.

On Thursday at intervals we ran a pacing session at my
request. It seemed to have helped before Jedburgh so
thought I would give it a go – although it took some
of the ladies a wee while to get the hang of what they
were supposed to be doing. As I was running the half
on Saturday, I got to run at my half marathon pace (or
actually what I would like to be my half marathon pace
of 2hrs for the half). This was a lot slower than
usual interval pace and did take a bit of getting used
to. Anne was spot on nearly with her session – she
was only 4 seconds out in total, which is pretty good.
I was thirty something seconds out. Oops. We ran
4x400m, 2x800m and 1x1mile all at the pre determined
times, without any watches. I like this session – its
good fun!

And then Saturday……what a disaster! Sheila M and I
set off at about 11, only to find her car had no
diesel in it and we had to detour to the petrol
station. We then got on the way to find a huge queue
at the bridges – there were road works on, and it was
a holiday weekend. We decided to detour again via
Kincardine Bridge, only to arrive in Kinross at 12:50,
when the race started at 1:00. We abandoned the car
and ran to the start (about a mile warm up at quite a
fast pace). We grabbed our numbers, haphazardly
pinned them to our chests, and went round the side of
the building to get rid of the excess fluid we had
consumed in an effort to start the race well hydrated
(I pity anyone who decides to go for a walk down that
nice country path – there are now a few rivers that
never flowed there before!) We got to the start line
and I was still trying to arrange myself so that I was
comfortably for the run and the hooter sounded! I
couldn’t believe it – I’ve never been so ill prepared
for a race start. Never mind the energy and stress we
had used/built up swearing at all the bloody caravans
on the way! And the wind! What a pain. Although I
was top of the class at higher geography, I’m not very
good at figuring out wind directions and how these are
going to affect you, which may have been lucky as boy
was the wind a nightmare for the last 3 miles.
Absolutely head on and energy zapping – loads of
people were walking and it was a bit of an internal
fight not to join them, but it was quite a boost
overtaking people all the way to the finish. Did the
pacing session work? Well I didn’t start my watch
dead on the start so here are the splits (for a 2 hour
half I need to run 9min10sec miles), although the
first one isn’t quite correct – lets just say I don’t
think their mile markers were quite in the right
place:

Mile 1 – 8.44 (remember I didn’t quite start my watch
on time
Mile 2 – 9.42
Mile 3 – 9.14 – nearly there!
Mile 4 – 8.37 – obviously a downhill or something
there???
Mile 5 – 9.12 – nearly spot on again
Mile 6 – 10.64 – think the markers were wrong – look
at mile 7
Mile 7 – 7.58 – can only do that sort of speed at full
on sprint!
Mile 8 – 10.21 – see what I mean about these
markers??? And this was the dreaded hill…
Mile 9 – 9.12 – again nearly spot on
Mile 10 – 9.07 – downhill again
Mile 11 – 9.37 – not bad at this stage in the game
Mile 12 – 10.36 – not so good – the wind was really,
really blowing at this point
Mile 13 – 10.02 – kept it going anyway
.1 – 1.00 – took a while – should have managed that a
bit faster!

My total – 2.04.04 – although I didn’t start the watch
quite on time, shucks. My official time was 2.05.03
(Sheila 2.01.52 as she ran with me until 8 miles), and
my official pb from Jedburgh last year was 2.04.57.
Damn – 6 seconds outside it!

Damn that wind – if it hadn’t been blowing this would
definitely have been a pb! Also if the race had been
chipped from start to finish I would have got a pb due
to delay getting to the start after the hooter.
Although this is by far the closest I’ve come to my pb
this year, and given the conditions….So it was a sort
of unofficial pb type thing – as I would have been
under the Jedburgh time……might try the East Kilbride ½
at the end of June – it’s chipped and flat. So long
as it’s not too hot though….you can never please us
runners with the weather!

As for the cow hunting – I’ve now ticked off 24 out of
94. I’m going again tomorrow to tick off the main
cows in the city centre. Annoyingly some are well
hidden – I couldn’t find number 18 – “The
International Moovers” which is apparently in ocean
terminal somewhere, or number 5 – “Circus Cow” which
is apparently beside number 79 – “Catch of the Day”
which I did find, down beside the Scottish Executive
in Leith. If anyone sees these cows let me know where
I’ve gone wrong….

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# posted by user : 10:56 AM