Or, the week of personal achievement.
November ended this week, with a total of 93 miles covered - a best. The week itself had 32 - another best, and the long run was my longest ever. The raw stats notwithstanding, this was a really good week of running.
Having had a quiet week last time out (parties, shit-hot concerts and so on), this was a "pick up the miles" week. Would have loved to do more than 5.5 on a stunningly sunny, crisp Monday, but meetings meant I had limited time - pushed hard, though, at 7.04 / mile. Out again on Tuesday for 6.7, with a nice hour snowboarding for R&R that night, and a steady re-run of Monday's route on Thursday - 3 minutes slower.
The biggie was Saturday, though. Had decided to splice two other routes together, thinking they made about 13 miles. The mapmyrun measure, though, was 14.5. The route also featured the "bastard mile" into Glen Fruin - 650 feet of ascent in a mile. I'd done this before as mile 2 of a 10 mile effort, but this was 6.5 miles into a much longer effort,
The plan was to try and make myself adhere to the S bit of the LSR (Long Slow Run) idea, so I set off at 8 minute mile pace and enjoyed it until the bottom of the big hill. Then, it was "just plod up" and, above all, NO WALKING. 11 minutes later I was over the top, and feeling surprisingly good.
The rest of the run was a steady plod along the Glen, legs gradually tying up, but very comfortable aerobically. Many interested species of wildlife, including Pheasant, Buzzard, bovinely-insolent Highland Cattle and (as I believe ornithologists call it) a big, fuck-off heron that swooped across 10 feet in front of me in startling fashion. Kept it steady and got round in just over 2 hours. As I said, the furthest I've ever run, so pretty pleased with it - and especially that nothing was seriously hurting.
The songs of the week are two of the three that got me up the bastard mile. Death (see below) was one, the other two being..
Headway - Finish What We Started
Manic Street Preachers - Can't Take My Eyes Off You
I LOVED running this week.
Week's summary: 4 runs, 32 miles, Long Run 14.5 miles
Miles since acceptance: 164
