runography

After training adhoc since January (a lot I must say), I decided to follow a new Program which I mentioned in the last post. Well something came up which meant I wasn’t going to bother starting the training, but I had to get out of the house so decided to take my son with me and just do the run.

So off I went to Strathclyde Park in South Lanarkshire for my first session.

Tempo Run

Distance: 5mi, inc Warm; 3mi@8:26; Cool

The Warm and Cool sessions are 1 mile long.

We load up the car with dog, bike and kid and head to Strathclyde Park. A full run around the park is not enough to cover this distance, it’s 3.68 mi, so we’ll have to be a bit inventive and add some distance. The only issue with that is persuading my kid that 1 lap of the loch is not enough.

We setoff at warmup pace and cover the 1st mile in 10:01, this included a few uphill sections to get them out the way early (his choice). Not long into it, the first hill infact and my son has fallen behind and I’m having to look over my shoulder to encourage him to catch up.

Into the 2nd mile and I have to up things to an 8:26-minute mile pace for 3 miles. This isn’t going to be easy at the best of times, but having to turn round all the time and ask someone to play catchup added some extra complications. Not long into the 2nd mile and I’m having to run back to meet him and encourage him to get a move on. I complete the 2nd mile in 8:46, including the run backs. The reason I know this is because of my new Garmin Forerunner 305 that I had purchased during my early running phase. So I’m able to get a reasonably accurate distance reading. Eventually I’ll integrate the data that I receive with this site.

Trying to do my run with my kid at the back is not easy, onto mile 3 and he’s 300yards behind me shouting questions in my general direction. I run back again and see he’s in the top gear for uphill work. No wonder he’s so bloody slow. I tell him to change gears (while I’m running) and he manages to go from 1st to 6th.. not great but a big difference and finally he’s able to go in front of me. I complete mile 3 in 8:51, which without child in tow would have been a lot less. ( I keep persuading myself).

Mile 4 and he falls behind again, I decide that I have to press on, it’s a fairly open stretch of the run so it doesn’t matter if he’s behind me, provided he’s not lost. I complete the 4th mile in 8:40, and I did do a little bit of runback, so could have been faster.

Mile 5 was a nice break, warmdown pace and running back and forth along various paths to try and get the distance in without going too far from the car. 9:48 was the pace. My son catches up and we head to the car, total time for run was 46:49.59, an average of 9:14-minute mile, quite reasonable considering the circumstances.

Due to do the long run of 6 miles on Thursday, so all set for that.

Today is a rest/xt day so I managed to get a game of 5-a-sides at lunchtime, only took 4 knocks in this game. I’m getting too old to be getting kicked around. And we lost too.