I did my level best to get up on time this morning, but failed miserably. I knew this because it was still dark when the alarm went off. Worse still, when I finally did make it downstairs some time later, it was 5.40am… though I still have no idea whether this was in new money or old money!
Still, it was a beautiful bright morning so I took up residence in the reading chair and continued in my current amazing tour through the French waterways with Damian & Shiv Horner’s wonderful book For Better For Worse. They each wrote their own thoughts which are then juxtaposed, so it is sharply insightful in a ‘Men are from Mars’ way. Really a most highly recommended read!
I was totally engrossed so time swept by and despite rising so early I ended up eating breakfast late and was consequently late out the door. No matter… I wasn’t really looking forward to the task ahead anyway.
I guess that you could say that I picked up an injury last weekend (left ankle pain), which is what Kurt from Run predicted if I tried to mix speed work with my training programme… I think the culprit was my fast five miler on the 19th March. I have given my ankle and lower leg a lot of massage attention this last week and I even dropped the Friday run from my tight schedule, but today was my last chance to run a long distance before I start to taper ahead of the marathon… which is now in three weeks time… so I had to at least try.
My ankle lasted roughly three miles, down from Woodingdean to Rottingdean and along to St Dunstans, before it demonstrated that it had an electric prod and was not afraid to use it. I stopped to comprehensively stretch and massage the affected area and plodded forward to see what effect I had achieved. It was pretty good, insofar as the pain abated completely for another two miles, whereupon I repeated the exercise.
My mind became focussed on a new pain, this time coming from my bladder, so I fixed my metaphorical gaze on the toilets along towards King Alfreds, around the 7.5 mile mark and hastened thither. Having greatly relieved myself there, I then spent a few minutes stretching my legs for good order before continuing.
At Hove Lagoon is the turn point for 18 miles, but since I really wanted to do 20 I continued onward. However, a combination of not having a fixed turn point for 20 miles and the lure of running just a bit further saw me continue on to the end of the Shoreham Harbour groyne, around the 11.5-mile mark, which I reached in 1.45.
Once again I carefully stretched my tired legs for a few minutes before turning and setting off for home.
I reached the Peace Memorial around 16 miles before I stopped to stretch again, then again outside Martlet Kayak Club at 18 miles and then I made it all the way along the top of the cliffs to Rottingdean around the 21-mile mark before my ankle got painful yet again and I had to stop to stretch. Each time I managed to resolve the pain before I ran on, but it obviously needs more work over the next few weeks to overcome it completely.
Interestingly, as I dropped down into Rottingdean I had a significant realisation… I wasn’t breathing properly. Despite wearing a BreatheRight strip on my nose, I was not filling my lungs to any real extent at all. It took me a while to open my lungs up fully, but the effect was dramatic. Compared to the last few long runs, I fairly flew up the hills from Rottingdean.
One other point of note… Spring is not yet fully with us! I wore only one long-sleeve top under my Gore jacket, but my hat and gloves only came off after the turn point when the wind was behind me and though I took my jacket off for the last two miles up the hill from Rottingdean, I got a real ice-cream head in the more exposed section around Longhill School. It was not warm out there!
With my six stretching stops, each of more than a couple of minutes, I took longer than my last run along this route on March 14th… but since the time was only 9 minutes more I would guess that I was actually running a little faster.
The time: 3.48
The distance: 22.95
The average speed, stops included: 6.04mph
Now let the tapering begin!
PS. The run and the rather early morning resulted in my spending most of the afternoon asleep on the sofa! Bless!