long run

"I'll teach me", is the phrase that comes to mind :)

I was upset enough about what I felt was a poor performance in the mile on Sunday, that instead of awarding myself ice cream and the rest of the day off, I took myself out for a punishment run. Abby and a friend visiting us from England were doing some of the Boulder 360, which is a 20-mile (or so) "citizens" bike ride on some gorgeous trails round the city. My original plan was to ride with them; I decided to run.

I know that sounds like I had company on my week's "long run" in London's Hyde Park, but actually the company was in my head thanks to reading the Sunday papers just before setting out.

My tally for the past 7 days:
Sat: 31 miles (Skyline Ridge 50k)
Tues: 4.65 miles (lunch run)
Thurs: 4.65 miles (lunch run)
Fri: 23 miles
-----
Total: 63 miles

Here's a diary entry I never thought I'd make:

Sunday: easy trail run in snow, 18.5 miles in 3:27:16.

This turned into a bit of an epic, but the cool thing is that I broke my long-run PR: I haven't run more than 18 miles for at least 20 years, maybe 25.

20 years ago (when I was 14, hahahahahahahaha), my regular long run was 18 miles. The distance wasn't scientifically selected, it just happened to be the most traffic-free route between my house and the place where I used to work. It only involved one hairy crossing of a huge field that seemed to be permanently ploughed and/or a sea of mud or ice, and one dangerous crossing of a major motorway :)

OK, so I haven't been doing my stretches. So halfway through my long run, back came the pain in the butt. Here's a funny thing though; it disappeared on the second half. Sometimes when I get an ache, I remember my training with Dr Nicholas Romanov of the Pose Method. Dr R is kind of uncompromising when it comes to injuries; whenever I've complained to him of something being not quite right, he's always thrown it right back at me: if I was running using correct form, I wouldn't get injured.

By now I had hoped to have interviewed Danny Abshire, man behind the revolutionary Newton running shoes and be inundating you with technical detail, the story of the seven patents behind them, a podcast and so on... but things have got in the way.

With two hours on the schedule for today, I'm betting I wasn't the only Magical Miler throwing open the bedroom curtains this morning to the sound of expletive deleted. Snowing again.

Looking on the bright side (actually, it wasn't very bright at all, but as gloomy as a London Sunday), it was noticeably warmer. A positively balmy 10 degrees or more. Oh joy! Uncharacteristically, Abby tried to talk me out of running. She knows that my long run days inevitably consist of me a) biting off more than I can chew; b) getting lost on the trails at least once; and c) being reduced to a grumpy, sulky, aching mess for the rest if the day as a result.