Or, welcome to reality
The first week of actually following what the training programme said. Except, of course I couldn't resist a tinker. While I did the scheduled runs "by the book" - recovery, pace, speedwork and of course "long slow", I had already noted the lack of "hills" in the programme.
To clarify, as anyone who knows Helensburgh and / or East Kilbride will be screaming "but there's hundreds of bloody hills", doing hills is one of the more arcanely torturous training sessions. It basically involves finding a moderate incline of around 200m, running up it hard-ish, jogging back down for recovery and then repeating a dozen or so times.
Having a "Rest or Cross Dress (sorry, Train)" option on Tuesday, I decided to lob in an extra hill session. In hindsight, combining it with speedwork (reasonable pace warm-up, run 6:35 mile, recovery jog, run 6:35 mile, recovery to finish) on Wednesday was probably a mistake. Legs starting to object, and I'd started to realise how hard this is going to be to do properly. Therefore I couldn't really be arsed with Thursday's "pace" run - just run at target marathon pace - but did it anyway and although it was the first time I've ever done 4 consecutive days of serious running, I actually felt OK.
The long run this week was the latest extension to my growing Loch Lomond sightseeing experience. Having started out as a 10.5 miler, then been extended to 13, it now weighs in at 14.7. The exact length is basically determined by the location of convenient spots where Mrs T can wait and pick me up (the run always starting with the train to Arrochar). And it was broadly what the programme said. Next extensions will be to Cameron House (16m) and then the biggie. All the way home - 19m, with the last 3 featuring some nasty hills.
Fortunately the horrible overnight weather had eased, and although there was plenty of rain & drizzle about, the wind had gone. This meant I could use my Under Armour base layer (have I mentioned how much I love Under Armour) rather than the Wind-Stopper. This is good as the Wind-Stopper, good though it is at deflecting the wind, is not quite as snug and therefore leads to some (apologies if you're eating) chaffing in the nipple region - addressable only by a vigorous pre-run Vaselining. Not a fun experience. Obviously.
Anyway, I plodded along at a steady and comfortable pace and was pleased to note that despite the extra miles this week, my legs were not tightening quite as much as they have been at the end of previous runs of this length. Perhaps there's something to this "follow a programme" lark. It really isn't just a matter of going out and doing some running, which is essentially what I'd been doing before.
To matters musical. As with last week, the original Long Run playlist has been revived, and is now up to 20 songs - still all by The Killers, The Music or The Boss. When I was having my mid-week confidence dip, this seemed an apt title:
Not usually a fan of the YouTube "create my own video over the top of some song or other" fashion, but as a fan of photography, I have to say this features some excellent stuff.
I can't end without a big thank you to the contributors this week. I published the start of my fund-raising activities to Facebook and Twitter, and some very generous people have left some very generous donations. So here's a big Thank You.
Week's summary: 5 runs, 37 miles: Long run 14.7m
Miles since acceptance: 327
