Those people who have dropped in on us unannounced will testify that we live in a relatively ordered, clutter-free way… down to the showers that get wiped down after each use and our somewhat Zen-like garden. And yet, with six important visitors expected last Sunday, we still managed to spend most of the Saturday tidying the garden and the Sunday tidying the house. All of which is a slightly elongated excuse for not running last week.
You will note that my excuse has nothing to do with the Eye-to-Eye odyssey. I actually had surprisingly few side-effects for my 47-odd miles, although it’s fair to say that mid-way through the following week I suddenly developed a severe case of narcolepsy.
However, mid way through last week (eleven days after the odyssey) I suddenly developed severe back-ache. This was most likely due to gardening, although by coincidence it occurred around the same time after the Eye-to-Eye as it (or something similar) occured after doing the Tour du Mont Blanc last year, so it might well be a case of over-heavy back-pack syndrome.
Which is my excuse for not joining Mark on the Downs at 8.30am (on a Sunday!!) this morning.
Although I had wimped out of a long run I was still mindful that a short run might indeed loosen my back, so I climbed on the machine this morning safe in the knowledge that I could get off at any point.
I started at 6mph and felt pretty-much-every-other–step jar my back for the whole of the first mile. Increasing to 6.5mph for the second mile helped a little, as did increasing to 7mph for the third mile. Some of this was probably due to my back loosening off, but it’s also much easier to skim along at a faster speed… if only I could hold it for extended periods of time!
7.5mph for the fourth mile was as fast as I wanted to go today so for the fifth and final mile I reduced back to 7mph, desperately trying (and failing) to do mental arithmetic to figure out the average minutes-per-mile covered. As I’ve mentioned before, as the level of exercise increases, so the bandwidth available for processing data in your head decreases.
I completed 5 miles in 44.17, an average of 6.77mph.
I then spent some considerable time stretching-out while my muscles were warm (read HOT!)… in fact the front of my body looked as if it had been glazed, although you only get a sense of how lobster-like it was from the photo below.
Fit!! Xo