Thursday 23 April 2009

Slow down or suffer the consequences on Sunday! (Or will I?).

I managed yet another PB today on the treadmill with a time of 00:38:39 for 5 miles. I constantly find that I'm in personal conflict with regard to the pace I'm running. Part of me just says "Go for it! Run as fast as you can and enjoy this new found speed after years of running at a 10 minute mile pace". This approach is great every now and again (I think) and doesn't half boost the morale. 

I mustn't forget that I've got 75 miles to get through this week finishing with the toughest 22 miles of the campaign so far on Sunday. The graph to the left shows the elevation profile of the route from Castleside to Middleton. I bet I'm cursing this week's 3 PB's (so far!!!) by the time I get to the 1750 ft summit at the 16 mile point. Or maybe not! We will see. Today though, I'm going to enjoy the feeling of having run 5 flat miles on a treadmill at an average of 00:07:44 per mile. There's plenty more where that came from! There is so much scope for improvement once I lose more weight and build further this power and stamina. 

As you can probably tell, I'm not showing a lot of discipline and control in my running this week or recently for that matter. Perhaps the best thing that can happen would be to have a very tough time of it on Sunday's run. That'll teach me! Or perhaps I will come out of that run having set another PB and full of confidence. Either way, it's nice to be writing such positive things, I guess. 3 weeks ago I lost the will to run and fell just short of 75 miles. There's no chance of that happening this week. Confidence is high, spirit is totally Gung Ho and failure is nowhere close to being an option.