A long flat run on Tuesday night, over a mix of roads and paths, felt really good. I tried a route I hadn't run on before, which added a certain amount of "I wonder where this comes out - maybe I should turn round" excitement to the run. My phone said I'd done 5.2 miles in 53 minutes, which is my usual running speed.
Then last night the same sort of distance from home. I set out a bit late, and even the first set of woods I went through were a bit gloomy. 30 minutes later and deep in the forest it was quite an adventure, trying to pick out the path in the gathering dusk and avoid logs and sticks on the ground and branches hitting me in the face. But I made it back without mishap. I shall take a headtorch next time!
Felt good at the end. I still had energy left and could have gone further.
I am torn between two desires - getting my distance up to make up for the long delays caused by my calf injury, and avoiding pushing myself too hard and causing more injury (or reopening the calf). I am already pushing much harder than the "10% more per week" rule, but do want to get up to running 10+ miles before the event.
The counter at the bottom of my blog says there are 49 days to go - 7 weeks to get back into shape. Assuming I do my longest run 2 weeks before that, I have 5 weeks, one week of which will be taken up walking in the highlands. So the plan is something like this:
- Two 5-6 mile runs during the week.
- A weekend run that I will try to extend by a mile or so a week (7, 8, 9, 10)
- Running the long runs with Pete in the New Forest (which is the nearest equivalent we have to Dartmoor!) (Though I don't know if he is yet up to the distance)
- Our last run (in 5 weeks' time) should be a replica of Day 1 in the OMM - 5 hours of running/walking with full packs. We need to know what sort of endurance we can manage on the day.
- Start running (as of the next run) with my pack. I'll start with about 10lb in it, and then build it up.
Watch this space to see how we get on....
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