It’s been a week of compromises. I took Monday as a rest day but overall the week’s mileage got off to a very good start, with 10M into work on Tuesday and then 5M home. I backed that up with 8M on Wednesday (no second run because I was rehearsing in the evening; still, Brahms 1 is very good for the soul, so no complaints there). The plan for Thursday was 5M to work and 10M home. However, the clerks (bless them!) had other ideas and at 5pm on Thursday I was handed papers for a case in London the following morning. I finished reading the bare necessities at 8.15pm and ran 5M home. I was up bright and early (5.30am) the next morning to make the 7am train (yay!).
I was sorely tempted to make this a cut back week on Friday afternoon when there were mutterings about the pub after work, but even though the Doombar was calling (that is also very good for the soul, after all), I instead dragged myself home and then out for 10M. 10M again on Saturday morning followed by the Swansea 10k at lunchtime today. I did a 4M warm-up and a 2 mile cool-down (actually only 1.8M; I was prepared to still hit 65M this week, but not 65.2!). The 10k in between just missed out on the accolade of season’s worst (41.32), as if I recall correctly I had an absolutely abysmal run at the Bupa 10000 in May and ran 41.40. I didn’t think I would ever be glad I’d run that badly, but there we go. Still, it proves that this tapering malarkey is thoroughly over-rated.
Although Swansea is a bit of a schlep for most people, I would do this race again. It’s a nice size (about 4,000 entries, apparently), so there’s always people to run with but there’s also space to run and the organisation was good. There was a minute’s silence for the miners who died a week ago just before we started.
Next week really is a cut-back week – a mere 50-55M. Lucky, because I’m in London for a conference tomorrow, have a rehearsal on Wednesday and generally the work diary is pretty packed.
And I’ll finish by noting that in 3 months’ time it will, of course, be Christmas Day. Running Home for Christmas will be over! I’ll hopefully be tired but happy, stuffed full of food and mildly sozzled on nice wine (I know mum reads this, but I’m not sure about dad; M: can you make sure he gets that hint? xx).
running home for christmas 