After such a successful week training, I took advice from one of our better distance coaches, the ever patient Mike, as to what I should do next and I got an emphatic "Hills". Now one thing we are blessed with in Wales is hills, and I live on the top of one just outside the magical city of Newport - magical in so much as bits keep disappearing such as historic murals. Anyway I digress, so hills, where to run safely without ten foot of mud, idiot car drivers and dogs: answer the canal tow path. But, I hear you cry, canals are flat - water and all that Newtonian gravity stuff. Ah - ha, not in Wales boyo, the canal that goes past my house goes uphill, seriously uphill.
It's known as fourteen locks, the canal rises 50m from the M4 motorway below Junction 27 to Cefn Walk a distance of less than 800m, and all this is less than half a mile from my front door. The little run therefore comprises of half mile gentle slope through Newport's unimaginative housing, before plummeting down the side of the hill in a series of steep drops alongside the afore mentioned locks to the M4 making it 1 mile to the bottom.
I made it down OK, dodging the odd mud puddle and startled squirrel and bemused children in 7 minutes dead. Getting back up was a whole new experience for me, I gave myself a 2 minute break to come to terms with the task and set off scaring the sh*t out of the squirrel, half way was tough and more muddy than I remembered on the way down. The world was now spinning, my breathing breathing hoarse, and I was now carrying the fridge (bear in woods an all that), I rasped, trudged (barely running) and gasped my way to the top where I was only too happy to stop to avoid being run over on Cwm Lane. Took two and a half minutes longer to come back than the trip down, got in and fell asleep on the sofa wondering if the world spins the other way south of the equator in places like Brazil- so that's hills is it then, must do it again sometime.
Sunday's run was an immense 3 miles and included a couple of hills as well, this was the first time I'd done this run for over a year and I was significantly slower, I was out and about for nearly half an hour. When I finally got in my butt seized up and no matter how hard I tried, the hot baths failed to cure it, so the ride to work on Monday was interesting.
Tuesday's session of 3x600m only served to remind me what the 3 mile run felt like again. All I say is I did finish it, at least the track is flat. I've checked the surface closely a few times now, it's definitely flat.
So to Thursday, definitely not fully recovered from the 600's so this was going to be fun. For some strange reason I thought 6x200 was a good idea and what was 32 seconds all about. First two were easy enough and inside the time two, third one I had to side step three twits jogging in the inside lane and passed them with a graceful left haded hand off and still managed 32 from lane 4. The short recoveries were taking their toll now though, and the next one slipped to 33, eyes open now its time for the bear. Sure enough only 50m in it all got a bit wobbly, I wandered off the track just managed to miss running into the discus cage, re-discovered where the track was but realised that I was in lane 2 as the track doesn't have a hard shoulder. Somehow I found the finish line where I commenced an in-depth study of the 4x100 change over box before checking out the contents of the bear's fridge, sadly no cold beers just some squash. 10 minutes later I did manage to complete the 6th rep but had to fore go any warm down in favour of being able to ride home the same night. Pain relief took the form of a double measure of my Welsh single malt Penderyn, lovely.
I didn't need much more motivation this week, but having seen my friends competing in the World Masters Championships in Brazil bringing home medals with performance that many senior can't match, I quite fancy some of that.
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