2009 - Autumn

[El Gordo]

I'm in another disappointing hotel in Nottingham, without the ability to upload a proper entry, but I wanted to mention today's run.

Just 4.5 miles, but apart from that ever-nasty first half mile, this was an outing that felt good at last. Last week's 8 miler made me happy after I'd got home; this one managed to offer pleasure as it happened. It's a while since I've had that experience.

Perhaps "pleasure" is the wrong word. Satisfaction might be better. I feel vindicated in my belief that weight is a key factor to getting back into the groove. Since dipping below 220 pounds a couple of weeks ago, I've felt more confident and more able. This week the scales have me under 216, and with it, a bit more bounciness and self-belief.

It was a grim day: cold and and grey and forlorn. I'd have preferred running in a proper storm to this featureless nothingness. By two o'clock I'd given up hoping that it might brighten, and plunged into it.

As mentioned, the first 5 minutes or so were as horrible as ever. There's something amiss if I don't ask myself whether I should give up and return home in these opening few hundred metres. Experience tells me that persisting into the second half mile will usually offer a reward, and so it was today.

After a mile, I realised I was running at a half decent pace for me, about 10:30, which added a bit more willingness again. I don't suppose I ever regard myself as being fully fit, but relatively speaking, when I'm as fit as I generally get i.e. in the last few weeks leading up to a marathon, I think of 10 minute miles as a good training pace for me. I've been nowhere near that in this campaign up until the last few days. The Saturday parkrun averaged out at 10:17, and today was looking promising so far. It gave me a fillip, and on I bounced.

I started with my normal round-the-block route but halfway through the big baronial estate I pass through, ducked down my newly-liberated illicit path, alluded to during my 8-miler entry. First time I'd been down it in this direction, which made it seem all the more daring.

It gave me a novel experience. I frequently run past the herds of deer, but they are always on the other side of the fence. Today, I was on their side of the barrier, and they didn't like it. I'm not sure that I did either. There were hundreds of them, and living up to their neurotic stereotype, decided to panic. So for about three hundred metres, I found myself passing through a tempest of deer, darting and flitting across my path and back again. It was a swirl of madness. I wanted to laugh, but was also worried that the tumult would catch the attention of one of the gamekeepers, who might feel minded to investigate. I remember a sign on a gate I used to run past in Yate, when I was training for the London Marathon in 2002: Trespassers will be shot.

But I was able to reach, and pass through, the gate at the far end of the path without having my buttocks peppered with lead.

I now had a choice of paths. Should I continue down the farm track and take the long loop around the canal towpath to give me another 8 or so miles? Or take the shorter route back along the lanes, and head for home?

Looking at my watch, and mindful that I had to drive to Nottingham at some point, I opted for the latter. If i can find the time, I'll aim to do the long run on Thursday. So I headed back, still feeling sprightly.

I managed to maintain the pace, finishing with an average of 10:31 over the 4.5 miles. I'm happy with that at my current weight. It's the sort of pace I was expecting to be at once I'd lost another 5 pounds or so. To reach it now is a good sign. It won't produce any records in Brighton on Sunday, but points to the likelihood that this will be a more comfortable 10K jaunt than the one in Crawley last month. Whether it will allow me to pose a serious challenge to the venerable Seafront Plodder remains to be seen. Possibly not; but I'll be disappointed if the gap between us hasn't shortened in the past month.