Beyond the Bend

Oh dear me, I now have some catching up to do! On Saturday for some crazy reason I decided to run in the Cross Country 10km event from the Boathouse at the lake. It started at 1pm and by that time the wind had picked up and the weather was cold and bleak to say the least. I felt ok for the first half but after the turn-around it was like running uphill against the strong wind - really tough. I couldn't catch Caroline who finished 2 minutes ahead of me although she was only one place ahead. I finished 85th in a field of 95 - at least I wasn't last!!

Total distance: 10km

Time taken: 55:39
Average pace per km: 5:33
Calories burned: 617

Monday - speedygeoff's training at PH

Tonight was the first of the training for track season. After a couple of loops of PH for a warm-up our main session was a series of 400m fast/400m jog for 30 minutes running fast along a grassy bank edge beside the road just up to and around the bend in the road then a slow jog back to the start. We followed this with a cool down loop taking us back to the start. I found the first 4 fast 400m really tough, my legs didn't want to run. They felt very heavy perhaps because we had an extra track at RPM this morning or perhaps through lack of sleep. However by the 4th repeat I was feeling much stronger and felt I could have run more than the 6 fast repeats I managed in the time frame if only I hadn't been so slow at the start. It seems to take me ages to get into my stride and warm up properly in this bitterly cold weather although it was actually a still night with no wind which made it ideal conditions for training (just a pity it wasn't slightly warmer)!

Total distance: 9km

This morning I concentrated on my upper body strength at the gym and this afternoon I took an early mark to come home to re-make grand-daughter's 6th birthday cake - a mouse! My first attempt was a disaster as overnight it gradually sunk, sunk, sunk and all the innards slowly seeped out of the undercooked mouse! Attempt number two was considerably more successful - one brown chocolate mouse to be delivered safely to birthday girl tonight!