10k with Hills and a Ford

Not a Ford Focus!  A real live ford with water and a big, big ruler thing to tell you if you are mad to try drive across.  Thankfully the wonderful people of Essex were wise and considerate enough to put a foot bridge next to it so I didn’t have to get my feet wet.  I was very glad.

Focus on the Ford

Isn’t running in the countryside interesting.  You can’t really nosy in through peoples front windows like you can in the town and there is far too little footpath but there are fords, animals, big farm machinery harvesting some sort of turnip/sugar beet type thing, houses with names that relate to what work you do, houses with names that relate to which bit of the Empire you retired from and lots more hills.

I quite like hills.  They have a big novelty factor.  But the next time I plan a route along roads I don’t know I’m going to check the gradients and make sure that the last two kilometres doesn’t include the steepest hill of the entire run.

And now I’m thinking I might train for that half marathon in March after all.  Well, start to train and see what happens.  I promised myself that if I could manage 10k today and not feel like death I’d have a go.  7StoneItch suggested the Asics app.  I haven’t looked at the app but I have tried their on line training plan generator and it claims that I have just enough time and no more.  I’m going to study it a bit more closely and if it seems even remotely reasonable I’ll give it a try.

Distance:	10.65 km
Time:	1:24:51
Avg Pace:	7:58 min/km
Elevation Gain:	61 m
Calories:	791 C

Two Things I Did Today

1. Day One of Janathon
2. Coughing up the lining of my lungs

It was a combination that I would prefer not to repeat.  Thank god I have a day off running tomorrow … bugger.

Actually I am going to cheat with Janathon.  I’m doing a half marathon in March and my training plan has plenty of rest days which I have every intention of taking.  But just sitting around on the rest days really would be cheating so I’m going to follow the Gorilla bodyweight exercise app on those days.

Of course, when I say I have a half marathon plan I mean I have no plan what so ever.  A brief look through the internet shows that most plans require more weeks than I have so I’m going to have a search around for the shortest plan going.

 

Distance:	4.52 km
Time:	33:41
Avg Pace:	7:27 min/km
Elevation Gain:	9 m
Calories:	350 C

Cambridge Half Marathon

I have signed up for my second half marathon.  Cause the first one was so much fun.  No, honestly it was.  In a really sore legs for a week afterwards kind of way.  Plus, I took so long to get round I really felt like I got my moneys worth.  I’m going to do the Cambridge Half Marathon.  Cambridge is pretty.  And more importantly, Cambridge is pretty flat.

Looking back at my Garmin records I see that I was running 5k in 48 minutes this time last year.  This year, after a summer of idleness, I can run 5k in 38 minutes.  There are 20k in a half marathon so that means that this year I’ll be able to shave off 40 minutes.  Ha.  Ha, ha, ha.

I managed two runs this week and I’m planning to fit in another one on Sunday.  I’d like to be running four times a week but I’m going to take things a bit easy for a couple of weeks and stick to three (hopefully).

Yesterday’s run:

Total Number of Streets: 650
Streets Completed: 93
Streets Left: 557
Percentage Completed: 14.31

Distance:	3.22 mi
Time:	38:13
Avg Pace:	11:52 min/mi
Elevation Gain:	18 ft
Calories:	410 C