The Three day week

Tonight I have completed possibly the toughest 3 consecutive weekday training days for a very long time.

It all began on Tuesday when I ran 8 miles with Plucky. After the race one week earlier in which we ran mostly together, it was clear that this week I had the upper hand. I was cruising along and suspected he was finding it pretty tough going. With approx 2.5 miles to go I gave Plucky a 30 second warning. I reckon he understood what I meant anyway, but 20 seconds after the 30 second warning period had expired he could not have been in doubt what I'd meant as he could do nothing but witness me run off into the distance.

I made 1min 35 seconds on Plucky in that 2.5mile section and recorded 6:00 average pace overall.

6 pace on a schoolnight? Soup herb!

Wednesday was my already reported fellrun.  3 hours is really as long an outing as can realistically be done after work (with an hour or so to drive either side of the run). I wasn't flogging myself for this, moreover just keeping a steady even pace, moving forward all the time and ticking off the summits. The weather was terrible. I was therefore pleased with myself for forging on over the entire planned route when numerous shortcuts could have been taken or summits missed out altogether.

After the fellrun I stupidly stayed up until 1am, resulting in my feeling utterly shattered all day today. By half three I'd had enough of work and buggered off home. There was zero possibility at that stage that I would do any running tonight.
Walking with Scamp down the river, an inquisitive cow broke free from the herd and followed us, getting ever closer. I didn't like the way things were going and tried to shoo it off away. The cow jumped at my shooing and this caused Scamp to have a go at it too (he normally is scared of cows and avoids them) which only made things worse. I lowped over a nearby fence to safety  and Scamp followed me. We then took a long detour to avoid further incident.

All this had woken me up a little and once finally home I elected to go and run my planned session after all.

Four by one mile.

Out and back in 5:34 then 5:28 was a huge surprise.
The next two felt slower as the rigours of the previous two days running began to make themselves at home in my muscles. Being fully warmed up and past half way of the session must have helped though, as I recorded 5:33 and 5:26.

5:30.25 minute miling average pace

That'll be my best average pace as a V40 then, and probably a couple of year before that too.

I'm so pleased I ran tonight 'cos now I can do whatever I want tomorrow. I may run, I may lie in the sun by the river (or shelter under the railway bridge)

Strange occurrence of the week - complete random stranger approaches me in the town and asks where is a good place to get photos printed out. We happened to be standing about 40yds from Jessops so it was a query easily dealt with. But how odd he should ask this of a bloke pulling a hose pipe from a van and feeding it into a pub beer cellar - and how strange also that the bloke he asked just happened to have personally had literally 100s of photos printed at said nearby shop.

Shock of the week - On Tuesday I was HALF A STONE under what I would usually expect to be. Yes I'd been for a tough 8 mile run but I'd also had a pint of fluid since.

Hilarious moment of the week - Scamp running around the garden tonight trying to escape my clutches as I attempted to shampoo his cowshitty head - river would normally be utilised for this type of cleanup but he must have found a last minute pat before we got back to the van

And finally - grammar, punctuation and spelling check - there will be no errors at all this week as I have been practising.