Another month disappeared! April has at least been a good month from a pushing one’s self perspective – I’ve run further and faster than I’ve done previously. My previous longest run was the Thirsk 10 in March, which took me 1:53:33 to do the 10 miles/16km. This month on a training run I covered 11miles/18km in 1:57:12 which I’m really pleased with 🙂 I haven’t done either of those distances since…13km being my longest for the last 2.5 weeks but it’s important to stick to the positives for fitness 😉
I’ve also come my closest yet to hitting a sub-60 min 10k at the Tyneside 10k, coming in at 1:02:04. Maybe this month I’ll get it…I have high hopes for the Great Manchester Run…just need to get back into training again 🙂
As well as hitting the longest distances to date, April’s been a good month for increased frequency of runs. With P working shift, I’ve been hitting the river at Prudhoe either on my own or meeting J down there for a lot more shorter, hillier runs and just generally getting more miles under my trainers. I’ve also attended the Blackhill ParkRun a few times (and tried my hand at marshalling for the first time!). I think this has all really helped my pace – I’m starting to see myself hitting below 6mins/km on my watch more frequently, and even on the odd occasion seeing paces starting with a 5 showing up on my per km summary on MapMyRun! It’s becoming normal for my pace to start with a 6 which I’m really pleased about – I just need to bring it down a little more and more consistently to be hitting the 1 hour mark for a 10k.
| Races | Runs | Workouts | Fastest Pace min/km | Longest Distance km | Longest Duration mins | |
| Feb-15 | 3 | 7 | 7 | 06:31 | 11 | 85.4 |
| Mar-15 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 06:50 | 16.1 | 113.6 |
| Apr-15 | 2 | 12 | 4 | 06:14 | 18 | 117.2 |
I’d been intending to do more work-outs for April – Gelt Gladiator is a scary 2 weeks away (had the pre-event info pack by email today :O ) and while the work-outs I have been doing have been working on my shoulders and arms, I’ve not done them as often as I would have liked. This week just gone I’ve not done anything since my run out on Sunday until tonight – I’ve just felt so very very tired. I had to kick myself to go out on Sunday, nearly phoning someone from work to see if they wanted to come and pootle round on a bike beside me just to give me the occasional kick up the butt but I made it out and round the distance I wanted to do on my own, though if I hadn’t been leaving the house anyway to drop P off at work I probably wouldn’t have at all! After that, it felt more like fatigue than tiredness – so I’ve been concentrating on getting to bed early, resting as much as I can and just trying to get my energy levels back. I know I’m wanting to hit a few more long distances before Liverpool in June (which is getting TERRIFYINGLY close), and I want to do well on some of the races I have booked this month, but recovering and repairing more slowly by being mega tired is not going to help that. Which is why I’m sitting up blogging when I should be heading to bed 😛 Baby steps.
I’m trying to at least start May on the right foot, it’s shaping up to be a very busy month for races, I have no fewer than 6 booked all over the place! I dragged my trainers on today for the first time in almost a week, figuring I’d try and blow a few cobwebs away on a short run before dinner, before I hit the longer distances over the weekend. J and I are heading to Sunderland (another place I should probably have been to but never have!) for the Sunderland 10k on Sunday, and I’m hoping to kick myself out the door for a longer one tomorrow morning before I have a chance to feel tired again!
The prospect of doing the same old loops did not appeal, so I decided that just to mix things up a bit I’d do my Medomsley village loop backwards – so I’d end on a long downhill instead of starting on a long uphill, but would probably have to face a steeper uphill in the middle. As it happens, I never got that far as I got distracted by a public footpath beside the church that I’ve seen before and wondered where it went. Apparently you can drop down onto the Derwent Walk if you go down through The Dene which is where this footpath took me past the farm (horses and sheeps and chickens I saw!), but I didn’t go far enough down the road – getting distracted by another public footpath that went along more fields and stiles to drop me off down the back of the school – I didn’t even know there was a path down there! I just assumed the road went to more school parking or something! The very good thing about my little sidetrip, is it looks like dropping down onto the Derwent Walk via The Dene instead of the main road is a lot less hilly, so much less off-putting for getting back and making it less likely I’ll need the car to get to the start of where I want to be. Further investigations needed 😉
I felt very heavy footed and loud breathed when I was out, but when I wasn’t crossing stiles or waiting for cars on narrow roads, my pace was still good so I don’t appear to have lost too much for my 5 days rest! I was only out for 15 minutes and covered 2.2km, but it’s better than nothing 🙂 All grease to the mill and it was good to get my trainers on for a non-daunting potter about rather than a battle against the mile counter.
Blue Runnings 
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