Faster faster, yelled the children - so I ran faster

After Tuesday disastrous attempt to run, I made a stab at my 5 mile loop on Wednesday. It took 31:30 but the effort required felt like it should have been a minute quicker.

This is supposed to be an easy week so rather than 90 we (me and Scamp) ran for just over 60 minutes easy on Thursday. More on roads though - less grass, mud and puddles.

Friday I met up with Darren (pictured above) at the running track to do 4 x 1 mile.

The very easy start that used to take me over 6 minutes was this week a much faster 5:50. For the next one Darren asked if 5:45 was our target - I suggested sub 5:40 was what we should be looking at and we actually ran 5:32. The effort needed to record the 5:32 was not huge - I could easily have ran another lap at that speed, so for number 3 I decided to go for it and was rewarded with a 5:26. We closed with a 5:40 which felt ridiculously easy after the previous one.  I was shocked to see just how much faster I can now run compared to say two months ago. This ability over mile reps should translate into a low 35 if not a 34 minute 10k race time by the warmth of the summer evenings.

Saturday was a lazy day. I was watching the Birmingham indoor meet on telly with a plan to go for an easy run as soon as Mo Farah won the 5000metres. But the phone rang during the race and I had to go to work. After that I couldn't be bothered to go out running in the dark so it was a second day off for the week (but remembering it was supposed to be my easy week this is not an issue)

This morning I awoke early and after breakfast walked Scamp (pictured below). 

The day began a bit gloomy looking but by sunrise it was glorious. By 0930 when Darren (pictured below) arrived at my house it had clouded over again.

The weather didn't really matter much, we had a tough 14 mile run to complete. My time for the 13 mile circuit the other week was 1hr 22mins (5 mins plus the 1:17 it took me to reach the flood).
Today we ran the exact same circuit but added in an (untimed) approximate one mile loop. Darren was a gonner at about 9 miles but soldiered on to finish about 90 seconds after me. My time was 1:21:30 which is approx 2 seconds a mile faster than last week. If the circuit really is 13 miles then this is equal to 6:17 pace which is a very significant average as it would yield a marathon finish inside 2:45 - the cut off time for qualification into the  London Marathon Club Championship.

I now have 3 days to train before going to Lanzarote, where, obviously, I will train even harder than usual as I wont be tired from being at work.