Rainy Days

• Posted: July 6, 2008
• |
• Author: Shéamus
• |
• Filed under: Workouts
• |
• Tags: 30 Minute Days

As you will have noted if you were watching the incredible men’s singles final at Wimbledon today, the UK suffered a fair amount of bad weather this afternoon. It rained. It rained a lot.

It rained so consistently and so hard, and the wind was so strong, that I had already decided, after rising from my post-night shift slumber at 3pm, that 20 minutes would more than suffice today. To be honest, I wondered if I’d struggle to get that done. I don’t own any cold-weather running gear and I had some concerns that my Garmin foot pod might not be waterproof.

When I set off just about 5pm, it became clear immediately that this wasn’t no normal gale - it was coming from all directions, and hard enough to make the rain almost vertical horizontal. That’s not nice when you’re just walking from your house to your car. When you’re running in it, it’s pretty hellish.

After figuring out the direction that was least offensive, I ended up running a different route today. Amazingly, I set off at a pretty good pace, clocking a shade under 7:37 for my first mile - a new PB - and followed that up with an 8:04 for my second. This should have been a lot faster, though - I was on pace for two 7:40ish miles until about the 1.5 mile stage of my run, when I turned a corner, changed direction, and ended up facing the monster of all headwinds. This slowed me to a crawl for about quarter of a mile, when I switched direction again and got the wind behind me, making up some time.

At two miles, I reached my turnaround point and this was where I met the gale full-on. It was a distinctly unpleasant experience - the rain lashed into my face and my ears quickly became numb with the cold. As soon as I hit the 20-minute mark on my Garmin - I was running slower than 9mins/mile at this point - I hit the stop button. The wind was so severe at this stage that I struggled to maintain a 20-minute/mile walking pace back to my house.

Stats:

Passing back along the seafront that I had ran just ten minutes earlier, I noticed that the police had arrived and closed down the road - some large scaffolding had been blown loose by the wind and was threatening to destroy everything in its path.

When I got home, I was initially encouraged by my times but it wasn’t long before I drifted in a mild depression at my failure to do the full 30 minutes. This was a little daft on my part, as I knew going out that I was going to run just the twenty, but it felt like I’d let myself down in some way. It also didn’t feel like I’d had a ‘proper’ workout - even though pushing beyond the 20-minute mark at speed is always a struggle for me, I didn’t feel like I’d made enough of an effort today.

However, as time passed, and I became engrossed in the fascinating match between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal on centre court, I began to refine my thinking. I hadn’t failed - I’d done exactly what I’d set out to do, in horrendous weather, and I’d actually done a pretty good job of it, too, with a very encouraging opening mile. Furthermore, I felt relaxed from the 20-minute running experience and realised that even though I had satisfied everything that was expected of me by the rules of my personal challenge, having a slightly shorter run today almost felt like a bit of a day off. I felt rested and content.

The experience has also made me reconsider my running goals for this week - originally I had planned to move up to 40-minute runs tomorrow but I think I will continue to run thirty minutes for the next seven days. I feel I need to conquer this 20-minute drop-off point before taking it to the next stage. Ideally, by this time next week, I’ll have 2-3 days of sub-8-minute/mile 30-minute runs under my belt. This will give me the confidence to take it to the next level.

All that aside - that’s 35 days in a row now. Not too shabby. After tomorrow, I’ll have roughly one-tenth of my challenge in the bag.

• (3) Comments
• Permalink
• RSS 2.0
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•