Brave or Foolish?

I’ve been a bit slack this week – part of it has been down to childcare problems but if I’m honest, the fact it’s getting dark earlier and earlier is not making it easy to slip in a run here and there. I have no idea what I am going to do throughout the winter, probably push the pushchair during the day during the week. Not looking forward to that at all!!

Anyway, today Steve came home from work 15 minutes early so I’d have time to fit in a run. I dashed out the door as soon as he stepped in the front door.. I wanted to have another crack at the 10K (6.22 miles) as I’ve not really run much over 4 miles recently. At all, actually!

It became clear as I headed out that today was not going to be a great day for it, as I had stitch almost as soon as I started running and every time I looked at my pace it was a good 30 seconds to 1 minute per mile slower than I was expecting for the effort I was putting in. Clearly I was not on top form. Still, I tried to keep the pace below a ten minute mile and for the first four miles that was exactly what I did – 4 miles in 40 minutes!

It’s funny, but it takes me a good two miles or so to really get going, then it just somehow gets a little easier. I get the feeling the 5K is not a good distance to me as I’m just starting to get into it around the time I need to consider “sprinting” (okay, upping my pace a little!) so the whole thing is just uncomfortable.

For the final two miles I decided to up the pace a little, and indeed when I looked back at my times, I was a minute faster for the second half than I was for the first! My pace for the final mile was a good 30 seconds to 1 minute a mile faster than any other mile – I am pretty pleased with myself that I could still go faster after covering 5 miles instead of collapsing with exhaustion. Which I did when I got in of course after that “sprint”!

Anyhow, the important bit – the time! Much to my disappointment, my time was 1 hour and 44 seconds. 44 measly seconds over my dream time of 1 hour! I am sure if I hadn’t had stitch or felt rubbish at the start (I felt great by about mile 3) I would have thrashed that 1 hour target. In fact my second half (the last 5K) I did under a 30 minute 5K.. just! Next time, next time.. I think I would have been less disappointed if I’d done 1 hour and 2 minutes or something! Still, I knocked 7 minutes off my previous (and only) 10K time which I set 3 weeks ago – I was running around a minute a mile faster pace. The average speed was 6.1mph, kind of nice to know I can run for an hour and cover over 6 miles, that’s quite a long way. And I also ran 6.58 miles in total, exactly a quarter marathon (the whole lot in 1 hour and 5 minutes) – a new personal distance record. Now, if I keep that pace up for a whole marathon (ha ha) I could do it in 4 hours and 20 minutes.

One new issue though, and this is grim – well, the blisters are gone (yay!) and my knees weren’t as sore as last time.. but there is always something. This week – sore toes. Oh yep, my toes. I won’t go into detail because it’s horrible but I am sure you can guess. It’s only the one toe so far, the longest one which is next to the big toe. But darn, there is always something!!

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On a *lot* less gruesome note, one of my friends has extremely kindly offered a gorgeous piece of jewellery for auction, with *all* proceeds to go to the Brave or Foolish Fund – i.e. The Miscarriage Association! The jewellery is a hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind bracelet, created by my friend who runs a small business making such items.

I’ll be launching the auction very soon, so please keep an eye on this blog for all the details and photos of this lovely bracelet – it goes without saying it’ll be warranting a post of its own so it won’t be getting muddled up in my training reports!