The excitement of running somewhere new was exactly what I experienced at the weekend. On Friday I had planned around 8 miles, along the river Mersey in south Manchester. According to my map, I would run across the bottom of Chorlton golf course, past the Chorlton water park, and my turning point would be a loop of Sale water park, all seemed fine so off I went.
On the 1st mile I came across my 1st problem, the paths were literally mud paths and it turned out that 80% of my run was cross county. Would make for a great spin out on the mountain bikes I thought. I plodded on regardless, just about saw the golf course through the trees and for some reason I totally missed the 1st lake haha.
After a little misjudgement on what bridge I was supposed to cross, I was soon back on the right track. Sale water park was great to run around, the view of the lake with the ducks etc made a mile or 2 pass very quickly. On my way back I realised my miles were more than planned (as I missed the bridge on my way out) lol. This meant I would finish on 9.3ish miles, and anyone that knows me will know that I just can’t let that happen. A little OCD means I hate odd numbers, so I ran past the house to make sure I’d complete 10miles in total. My average was just over 8 min/mile pace, so considering the terrain I was happy for sure.
Sunday morning was again, run time. This time, Andrea was joining me for 5K around Didsbury. We started off (eventually) 😉 nice and steady for the 1st half mile or so, gradually building a little pace as we went along. Andrea’s 5K race pace is just over 9min/miles, but as I had the Garmin on today she had no idea what pace we were running and I didn’t tell her either 😉
On our 2nd mile running strong at 8:30 pace I asked how she was feeling, good was the reply, and I knew at this point a 5K PB would happen for sure. Mile 3 was a tad annoying though, as we had to deal with a few busy junctions and traffic lights, we kept our pace as best we could though. Once we hit 3 miles it was a final push on the 0.1, we managed to increase our pace a lot. I think I was maybe in the bad books for pushing her so hard, but when I told her she took 1minute 35seconds off her PB she was delighted, her PB is now 27:32.
Now for the start of a new week, with new training plans. December is a difficult month as the relentless amount of parties, food and drink take control of what training can be done. I’ll struggle through with a bit of both I hope 😉
Aaron
imborntotri 