I decided that tonight I would go out with group 2 of the Run England rather than the Bounders, wanting something a little shorter and slower than when I normally go out…so much for that! 7.72km and some of the fastest paced stretches I’ve run! The group had a variety of different abilities in it, so was quite spread out, and we went a moderately road-y route, particularly for the first half, so there were several stopping breaks while we waited for everyone to bunch back together again before we got spread out several crossings apart. Cars tend to be pretty good at stopping for a group of 20 people.
We took what felt to me like a slightly odd route around Consett, it covered some stretches I’d done before and several that I hadn’t, and we seemed to spend quite a bit of time weaving through the housing estates at one point until I was quite turned about and had no idea where the end was in relation to us. There was one stretch we did which went up and then along the side of a hill – and the view was absolutely fantastic, I could see for miles straight out over the fields – helped by the weather: a very clear, sunny evening with the sun still moderately high for pre-sunset. I’m not really looking forward to running in June-August… it’s going to be far too hot! It was warm enough for me tonight!
I was looking for a gentle jog when I went out, but what I ended up with was more like interval training – so my average pace looks pretty on a par with the longer distance runs I’ve been doing by myself, about equivalent to 10:30min/mile, but several of the running stretches (some as long as 0.6km in one go) were at a pace of closer to 05:30min/km – just under 9min/mile. When I was out interval training with J at the end of March, I was hitting 04:30-05:00min/km but only for very short stretches – 0.2km at the very longest and was rather out of puff at the end of them! When I started running I was running as far as I could, then dropping back to a walk for a rest period, then back up to a jog again. I may try doing the same, but with different speed running next time I’m out – as fast as I can comfortably go for longer than 3 paces at a time, for as long as I can before dropping back to a recovery jog for a breather. I’m aware that at the moment I don’t really have a 5km/10km/half marathon pace – I just have one comfortable jogging pace that goes on and on for increasing distances, not exactly ideal for improving times!
I’m pretty pleased with the pacing where I was running, and I got round a tougher and longer route than I was anticipating when I headed out the door this evening! My knee, however, is not best pleased about it. As always, still work to do and very ready for bed!
Blue Runnings 
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