Yep, the start to the F1 season is finally getting under way today in Melbourne, with Aussie star Mark Webber hoping to go one better this year in his new, lighter, faster car.
Also lighter and faster (though not any newer) is MLCMan, now up to his eighth run in as many days, and they're just getting better and better. I'm of course still a long way behind some of the RC champions here well into their Brighton and London marathon training, but I'm making good progress, as evidence by two challenges I set myself this weekend.
Yesterday I swapped my long run from Sunday to Saturday and headed off for a leisurely 90 minutes non-stop plod. This was comfortably achieved - so much so that I set myself what I thought was a much harder challenge for today, namely to break 30 minutes for the 5km, something I haven't done for a very long time - probably two years or more. And I was left wondering whether I had tested myself sufficiently or not, finishing the run in 29:18 and while I won't say I romped it in, I wasn't really struggling at any point either. So, very happy I am.
So just 7 days now to the first race on my 2011 calendar, the local 10km fun run. It's called a fun run, but it's treated by many as a serious challenge as it incorporates the worst of the local undulating terrain, so it won't be a fast race, that's for sure.
In the meantime I have four long work days ahead, which will necessitate restricting running to the tiny 15 minuters I've had to resort to, with hopefully a reasonable amount of walking as I did last week. I've little doubt now that the short runs are actually far more beneficial than you might at first think. To my mind they certainly help ward off any muscle soreness, and a quarter hour of hills or reps actually prepares the body for the longer sessions later in the week. So far it's working for me, anyhow.
Track du jour has to be Bon Jovi's Living On A Prayer, coming on the mp3-gadget-box as it did exactly half way through my run...
Oh - oh we're half way there
Livin' on a prayer
Take my hand and we'll make it - I swear
Livin' on a prayer
Mangling March or, Sleepless in Sydney.
