Upbeat Easy

I doubt the run category “upbeat easy” actually exists. But that doesn't matter. It's a run that starts relatively easy and develops into a tempo. Now let's be clear here: an upbeat easy is done solo. The sort of easy run you do in company where the pace keeps increasing because you (and your companion) are ultra competitive is something completely different.

So today I did a five mile upbeat easy. Initial difficulties choosing a route were resolved when a quick once round the block revealed a strong wind blowing from the east. So that was route decided: head out in a generally easterly direction and let the wind blown me home.

High points on the run included having to cross two motorway slip roads (why build a subway when you can play chicken with juggernauts?), a long slow climb (between mile 2 and 3), a short sharp climb at 3.5 miles and running past my now flattened secondary school.

Garry George Reps

So after a good night’s sleep following yesterday’s aborted tempo run I find myself up at the canal loitering at the back of the Rockets. As we walk towards the seemingly randomly starting point the group naturally splits into thee: elite, semi elite and rubbish. I guess I don’t need to tell you which group I’m with. Company today is in the form of Niall, Garry George and Steve. Although we all know Steve will run his own personally unique interval session – where recoveries are at the same speed as the rep.

Six servings of four minutes pain separated by ninety seconds intensive care are on today’s Menu du Jour and boy I feel hungry enough to eat un petit cheval.

It all starts off civil enough: three hard but fair reps out to the turn. Steve, however, just keeps running into the distance not to be seen again. The first one minute fifty seconds of rep four is tolerable and then we bump into Martin running towards us. About turn, three becomes four and it’s rumble in the jungle time. Now I’m not saying Niall and Martin are competitive but I think it’s fair to say neither like coming second. The pace shoots up and Garry George is jettisoned off the back.

Rep five and Garry George, now running with posttraumatic stress disorder, makes the classic schoolboy error of stopping a minute too early (yup been there – got the T-shirt). Rep six and with a minute to go I overtake Martin and run myself into the ground determined to stay ahead. A shallow gesture I admit given that Martin had been comfortably ahead of me on all the reps up to then. A few minutes later Garry George and his bag of excuses rolled up - hurrah!

Monday Is Still Monday

Give that Saturday is the new Sunday (Niall). And Six is the new seven (Kenny). Then it follows that Monday is surely the new Tuesday. So it must be intervals day? Well actually no, although the thought did cross my mind. Instead I decided to go for a tempo/threshold from St Katharine Docks down to Canary Wharf and back (about five miles if my memory server me right). And it might well be five miles as I didn’t actually make it beyond Tower Hill.

My legs were just dead. And this is despite, or maybe because of, having an easy rest day yesterday. But I’d spent the whole morning eating so I had to cover at least a few miles to burn some of the excess calories. Either that or buy new trousers on the way back to the office. I opted for the former and somehow managed to plod out a convoluted five and a half mile loop taking in Blackfriars Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and Holborn Circus. I would gladly have stopped and walked at just about any point but fashioning my bright yellow Nike Go Nocturnal top with a big 1 on the front I felt somewhat conspicuous.

I do hope the legs feel better tomorrow