Sunday 14 February 2016

The hills are alive...


...with the sound of my pounding feet. Apparently this isn't a good thing and I should be treading lightly, my foot rolling through the motion and leaving the ground with a spring. Ah well, can't do everything.

I never realised that there were so many different aspects to running and 'good form': breathing, foot fall, leg rotation, strength, endurance, posture, arm movement, head position, technology, measuring progress, training methods, warming up and down, stretching, flexibility, nutrition, hydration... the list goes on!

Of the thousands of inspirational quotes on social media, one jumped out at me this week:
Athletes eat and train, they don't diet and exercise
I quite liked that, because I like to eat (definitely don't diet) and feel I'm moving more from exercising into training. It may seem silly to others and sounds silly when I refer to myself this way, but it does actually help me mentally to think of myself as an athlete. When Greyhounds socialise it amuses me to think of this bunch of athletes eating curry and drinking pints. But we all run hard and most run far or fast and some gifted hounds run far and fast.

So I'm half way through my (very) short training stint for Huddersfield - 2 weeks in and 2 to go. I've proved to myself that not only can I run the distance (and a bit more), but I can do that with some serious hills in the mix. In the first week of February I did two hill runs, both around 250m and both over 11km.

In the second week I did another hill run, this time well over 330m climbing and 13km distance...in the same run! My second training run for that week was my first intervals session. I found that very difficult to pace myself correctly, as my Apple Watch was taking time to adjust to a new pace, meaning I would think I was running too quick and slow down to then have to speed up a bit and find the right balance. This is all because I struggle to pace myself correctly and need to find the right rhythm and learn it so I don't need to look at a watch to know my pace.

Anyway, it's been a good couple of weeks under my belt. I have increased confidence in my ability to meet the challenge ahead. But it still can't come soon enough - I want to get it run, get it beaten and move on!

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