A week has gone by since my last blog entry, and it seems to have gone by at a fair old pace. The weather has been very kind, on the whole, making training runs a pleasure, apart from the odd shower here and there.
After the high winds of last weekend, the weather became somewhat calmer by Monday afternoon. Monday was a non running day for me. Instead I had a quick 40 minute kettlebell practise session in the afternoon, between seeing personal training clients in the morning and teaching three kettlebell classes in the evening.
The running shoes came out again Tuesday morning for a 8.5 mile run which was made into an interval training session by doing four 1 mile fast pieces. For those who like stats, by average mile pace was 5 minutes 50.5 seconds, with a fastest mile of 5 minutes 39 seconds and the slowest at 6 minutes 4 seconds. Quite a big variation, which I put down to residual wind from the weekend. Still, I was quite happy with these times, and it felt good to put in some hard efforts over a one mile distance.
I almost repeated the process whilst training a client on Tuesday evening, who I also made run 1 mile intervals. My clients times were more consistent, but a bit slower at about 7 minutes 50 seconds per mile.
I had another double training session on Wednesday. I put myself through another kettlebell workout in the morning, although only a short 40 minute session. In the evening I had the privilege of guiding some 38 ladies on a 7.5 mile run around Cambridge as part of the Sweaty Betty Great British Run. The aim was to get as many ladies along as possible to run as many miles as possible in one evening. The event was a competition between all the Sweaty Betty stores nationwide to see which store could cover the most mileage. I still haven't found out who won. I know that our ladies completed about 261 miles in total. I'd also run 2 miles to the store and then back home at the end of the evening to make my mid week run a total of 11.5 miles. The weather was glorious on Wednesday, which made a very nice change for a Sweaty Betty challenge night. We've had some bad weather in the past.
The weather turned again on Thursday, my busiest day of the week. I got nicely wet on a couple of occasions. I was going to go for a late night run, but decided I'd had enough of a drenching for one day. A night in reading my book felt luxurious, I didn't feel guilty about missing a training session.
I made up for the missed run by having another double session on Friday, despite not feeling my best in the morning. I'd seen two clients in the morning, but my stomach was feeling a bit dodgy. As a result I cancelled two afternoon sessions. I also thought about cancelling my one-to-one Pilate's session with Holly, but I knew I'd still have to pay for the session as a late cancellation. Being a tight bugger I opted to go along and do my best. Surprisingly, I felt fine during the session and much improved afterwards. Holly gave me a good stretch on Friday, and I believe I'm starting to see real progress in my flexibility. I'm still a long way off from making into the Royal Ballet, but progress is definitely being made.
As I then felt so much better I went for a gently 10k run in the afternoon. The weather in the morning had been glorious, so I decided to pop on my shorts and get my legs out for the first time this year. Typically, 10 minutes into my run it started raining. My intention had been to just run at a steady pace and to not push myself. When I got home and reviewed my pace, as recorded by my Garmin, I was surprised at how fast I'd been running. My average pace was 6 minutes 47 seconds per mile, and I ran my fastest mile in 6 minutes 13 seconds. Not bad considering I wasn't even trying to push the pace. The intervals on Tuesday must have been taking effect.
I had intended to do a kettlebell training session today, but instead felt obliged to go into town to buy a Valentines present and to then get home in time to watch the rugby. I was expecting the England vs Italy game to be an easy win for England. However, I wasn't expecting a 59 - 13 scoreline. The game was more exciting than expected with England dominating in all aspects of the game. A few silly mistakes were made, but on the whole England are looking very convincing. I hope to watch England's next game against France in a pub, but as my next marathon is the following day I will need to be restrained and stick to soft drinks.
I'm planning a 20 mile long run for tomorrow. This will be the last long run before marathon number 2 in two weeks time.
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