Sunday 6 May 2012

Week 10 of 18 - Confessions of a late night runner

This week saw the end of wet April and for me it started the Marathon month of May with Edinburgh on the 27th. In a show of defiance against conventional wisdom I have decided to run every day in May for at least 3 miles, and as of today the 6th I have managed to sustain this. 5 of them were for the bare minimum of 3 and the other for a mere 4 miles but we have some consistency something that has been sorely lacking in my 2012 training. I have already beaten my April total of 5 runs, one of those was a 35 mile race, but none the less the trend is a positive one. Next week I hope to get the run distance up, starting with a 10 miler on Bank Holiday Monday.

Even if I were to run just the minimum 3 miles a day plus 26.2 miles for the Marathon then I would have run my biggest ever mileage month in my 37th month of running :-) That's right the 2nd May marks the 3 year anniversary of me taking up running and although the progress has slowed of late I have still come a long way from those first trips round the bridle track.

My runs this week have come late in the evening/night with 2 post 9pm runs and 3 post 10pm runs. It is far from ideal but has just been the time I've had available. For the working man the running windows are limited, you have the early morning run (5-7am), the commute zone (8-9am)/(5-6pm), the pre dinner run (6-8pm), or the post dinner run (9-10pm).

I have shown over my 3 years running and Lauren will atest to it that I just can't get up at 5am for anything let alone a run and so the morning run is out. The run to work commute is a little on the long side and would require me to bus it home or in, so I have opted to cycle to and from the office. The pre dinner run is just too tight, work runs a little late, the post run shower etc, it all adds up to a no go. Which leads me to the conclusion that a couple of hours post dinner to let it settle is the running window for me. All very sound logic, except today Sunday I have managed to go out latest of all at nearly half 10! The only advantage of these late night runs round the block is that the freaks come out! In the week I smelt/saw at least 3 weed smoking dog walkers and tonight I was joined for 100metres by some drunks who thought it would be fun to join me for a run. All very odd, but helped pass the time.

Aside from these short, late night runs I also commuted 4 out of 5 and cycled to Ryan's for the footy today all leading to a total bike mileage of 54 miles. No swimming for me. So this weeks training looked liked this:

Swim - 0
Bike - 10 (54 miles total)
Run - 6(19 miles total)

Far from perfect but headed in the right direction.

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