Speed

Sunday 25th July 2010

"It is only when you are pursued that you become swift."
- Kahlil Gibran (Syrian poet, writer and painter, 1883-1931)

Following on from my last blog post, Katie Bertie was not happy with me on Friday, when she read my plan (on Facebook) to “run 5 miles as fast as I possibly can”. And when I finished my treadmill run I was met with a message stating that I should be running only 3 miles, not 5, and not as fast as I possibly could, but just faster than my long distance pace. Oops. Oh well, at least I had chalked up a few more miles!

So this Sunday evening, I planned to make amends with a nice short and speedy 3.1 mile (5K) circuit around Rochester. My best pal and usual Sunday evening running partner, Anna, is currently sunning herself in Mallorca (Jealous? Moi? Um… yes!), and so I invited my seriously speedy friend Hannah to run with me. She is a “proper” runner and has been running for 4 years, training every other day, so I was worried about keeping up, let alone being able to find enough breath for conversation, but she assured me that she would let me set the pace.

We set off up the hill and I was immediately shocked by how much faster than me Hannah was, especially given that my road is a very long, steep incline. I tried my absolute hardest to keep up with her, but after about 5 minutes had to actually slow to a walk – I just couldn’t do it! We walked for a couple of minutes and Hannah gave me lots of tips on treadmill interval training to help increase speed and endurance – I will definitely be putting some of those into practise!

We set off again, this time keeping to my (slower) pace, and completed the circuit in 30 minutes. I must admit to feeling more than a little disappointed in myself that I didn’t do a better time. I could blame it on the heat and humidity, or just put it down to an “off” day, but the truth is I’m still a beginner and clearly have a long way to go before I become a “proper” runner, whatever that means. Maybe by 2014 I will be as speedy as the lovely Hannah. I hope so!

Distance run (in miles): 3.1
Total mileage this week: 3.1
Total mileage for July: 65.4
Total since starting blog (20/6/10): 115.4