I’m a lone wolf runner. Okay, I’m a lone runner, but the wolf sounds good doesn’t it? Anyway, during the winter months, I am a lone runner in the dark – usually at about 5:30am. But come the weekend I get to go out in the daylight. Today was one such day, but I ran out of light.
There have been some very cold mornings this week. Cold mornings mean I wear my buff over my face. I’m not suggesting I would get frostbite, but I don’t want to get chapped lips! So this is what I tend to look like on these dark mornings.
Scaring the locals
I often get remarks on Instagram about my look and that I would scare people. The thing is, I rarely see anyone out at that time at all. But this week I did scare someone, except it wasn’t in the dark.
Today, Saturday, I went out in the afternoon for a fantastic, muddy, 5-mile run. The sun was going down so I knew I would be getting home at dusk, but not in the dark. So, I hadn’t gone with hi-viz clothing. In fact, black was the primary colour on me today.
Coming along the main road home I spotted a couple ahead of me. They also had a dog and the lady was picking up after it. I moved onto the grass to my left to give plenty of room in case either dog lurched for the other.
The couple’s dog did lurch towards Duke and me. I had misjudged the space required as it was on a flexi-lead and the man was caught off guard and didn’t react quickly enough. The dog caused me to make a noise, something like “whoaaaaaaah!”.
Duke, on the lead attached to my waist belt, pulled and I lost my balance. To count that, and at the same time as my “whoaaaaaaah!”, I flung my arms up.
Unfortunately, the woman hadn’t seen me (due to her picking up the poop). She saw me at that very moment and I think I gave her a bit of fright. How do I know this? Because she jumped and shrieked an “arrrrrgh!”.
I was on my way home and I was in full stride. I could stop, so just shouted the most sincere “sorry” that I could muster and ran on.
I’m laughing about it, but I do hope she wasn’t too spooked!
So, how about the rest of the week?
I had a fab long run last Sunday and clocked up a 10k in 49:50. I am really pleased with that given that I haven’t run that far since early September last year, and I was a few minutes faster to boot. It was a road run too, so with a dog, I will be slower than I potentially could be. It feels good to be getting that stamina back again. I am aiming to get under 40 minutes for a 10k this year.
That 10k took me to over 42km for the week and that’s an increase on the previous week. These small increments are what I am aiming for.
On Monday I took a rest day and then didn’t run again until Tuesday evening. That little break felt good, to be honest.
On Wednesday morning I clocked up an 8km Fartlek session. It wasn’t about the distance though, I was aiming for a solid 45 minutes and that’s what I got. Training by time, rather than distance is how I got into running in the first place and it feels good to go back to that to regain my fitness.
Runs on Thursday and Friday, and today’s too, have me at 35km for the week with tomorrow’s run to come. Another 10km tomorrow and I’ll have incremented my weekly total again.
Good feelings
When running, or training, is going well it gives you a great feeling. Along with the running, I am eating more vegetarian food and I feel like I have more energy. Cutting down on meat, not cutting it out, I believe will also help with my rheumatoid arthritis to keep inflammation at bay.
Here’s to another great week of training.
Thanks for reading.
Dave
