Sunday 13 April 2008

All systems go

I have had my best week so far.

On Monday I ran 11miles around the Point of Ayre. Tuesday was an easy 4 mile run along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and Wednesday was a longer 10 mile run up the Canal with some colleagues.

On Saturday I planned on doing a long walk because, after all, that's what I am training to do. I felt that after a good few weeks of putting a base down, it was time to test myself a little. With only 9 weeks to go I felt that I should be able to do 20miles at this stage. My parents live in Peel and I live in Bride so it made sense for me to walk the Parish route backwards from Bride down the Lhen to Ballaugh, through Kirk Michael and along the coast road to Peel. With a plan in mind I set off at 7am.

I decided not to racewalk as such, just walk quickly. I was worried that my knees would begin to hurt if I locked them back every stride. I set of fairly steadily doing around 4.5 miles an hour for the first hour. The sun was out and after an hour I still felt very fresh so I got into my pace and pushed on a little, upping the pace to 5 miles an hour for the next hour. I popped into the post office in Ballaugh for a quick Lucozade and a bar of fruit and nut. Hardly the best nutrition but I fancied it and I make up my rules after all :-)

Revived and feeling a little altruistic (I didn't want the change chinking in my pocket so I put it in a lifeboat box) I pushed on to Kirk Michael at a quicker pace and did the next hour at 5.5 miles an hour.

Just after Glen Wyllin I realised that I was racewalking without having made the decision to do so. My mind started to wander and I pondered how the style came to be in the first place and realised that its just a natural thing that starts to happen when you walk quicker over time. When the body is tired it naturally looks for efficiencies and that's how I ended up. It is just an efficient fast walk. Maybe that's obvious? Ahem! Its probably the just Lucozade talking to me...anyway my knees felt OK so I kept going. The last hour I was conscious of a potential blister on the ball of my left heel. Not a lot you can do about that. I dropped the pace a little, back down to 5 miles an hour and got to Peel just under 4 hours. A nice 5mph average. I surprised myself, I felt fine, no blisters and no sore knees.

I woke up this morning, go out of bed and nearly fell flat on my face! My legs decided to go on strike, reminding me that I had taken the %^&$ the day before. The score settled, I slowly warmed up myself and spent the morning repairing the drive. My drive is 1/4 of a mile long and I shovelled around a tonne of stone into a trailer and then back off the trailer onto the drive I was absolutely shattered at the end. So I fell asleep. I just woke up from a sleep and I feel like an old man Now my arms are killing as well as my legs and feet!

Oh well, it was a super week 45 miles and a repaired drive :-)

...and I am STILL 87 kilos!!!

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