Finding My Inner Runner

So, given that as recently as Tuesday, I wasn't sure if I'd be fit to even start the event, my goal was really just to try and ease myself round without aggravating my back which had, thankfully, pretty much settled. The "easing" bit, of course, went out the window as soon as I passed the start line, and I quickly settled into my familiar internal shouting match where I kept telling myself to slow down and get a grip of my pace. It had been predicted to rain, but thankfully that held off and the conditions were almost perfect, about 15°C, dry and only a light head wind for part of the second half of the run. The event bills itself as "Fast, flat & picturesque". Despite that, there are a few gentle inclines. The "picturesque" I can't argue with as it's the part of the world I live in and the start is less than 3 miles from my front door, but, to be honest, I wasn't really taking the scenery in as it all went past in a bit of a ...

After an extended festive break, it was back to herding egg chasers in muddy fields again this morning. This morning it was the turn of Musselburgh to host Berwick. Just shy of 5k in cold, but bright and dry conditions, and there was actually some good rugby going on around me at times too. I'm always slightly surprised when I look at these maps with how much of the pitch I actually cover during the course of a game, and also the fact that there are sections of the field that I seem to totally avoid (in this case, the bottom left corner didn't see very much of me at all. No parkrun this week as a result of this, but I think, looking at the graph below, this still counts as a pretty intense interval sessionm..

Not quite sure where I found that one, especially after knocking over 3 minutes off my 10k  PB on Sunday. I have been on a bit of a low these past few days, in part a come down after my recent holiday in Japan for the Rugby World Cup, but also because my thyroid is playing silly sods and I'm having to tweak my medication levels to find a new balance. Anyway, I decided a change of scene and some wind in my face would do me some good and headed down to the shores of the Forth and, lo and behold, chopped just over a minute and a half off my 5k, bringing my PB down to 28:09, with a first kilometre of 4:41 (which is just nuts really). It is very flat, being right along the coast, so that helped considering I usually have a few climbs on my regular routes, but even still... So, um, yeah, thanks thyroid, but you can really settle down now...