Thursday 26 January 2012

Janathon day 25 & 26: The only way is up!

This time last year Janathon was over for me. This year I am still feeling strong and I’m looking forward to completing Janathon on a high. I have run every day except one, where I chose to swim as my leg wasn’t feeling great. I headed to the gym last night to battle with the treadmill again. My music helped a lot last time, so I opted for some loud old school tunes.
I put my headphones in and started to run but my music was quiet, so I adjusted the volume to the max. Still the volume was pretty pathetic but I kept running. Soon after, my boyfriend was tapping me on the back frantically waving his hand at me. Oh yes, it seems the reason my music was quiet was because I had pulled the headphones out and the whole gym was in for a treat with my speed garage compilation on loudspeaker. Shame!
I wanted to do 5km and wanted to improve my time. I had 27:30 in my head but I was tired and I was struggling at 1.5km. I decide 3km would be my lot but as 3km neared, another good song came on, I got an extra energy burst, so I carried on. I was making good time, so despite feeling tired I just kept going. I had to slow down a couple of times as I had severe heartburn, caused by ramming crisp bread and jalapenos down my throat whilst heading out of the door. I would definitely not recommend this. I am pleased to say, I finished my run exactly on target with a big smile on my face.

Tonight was track night and I’m not going to lie, I was scared. I did say recently though that it is good to be scared and also that I need to take my own advice more. I travelled 18 stops on the tube so that some of my lovely @rundemcrew friends could show me the ropes. I arrived and as a complete beginner I felt out of my depth but you sometimes  have to do things that are a little uncomfortable.
Everybody made me feel extremely welcome, giving me advice and helping me out during the group drill session before the track laps started. I did 3 x 400m warm up laps before the session really started. I then did 6 x 400m laps, with small walking rests in between each lap. I knew immediately that I hadn’t hydrated enough so after lap 3 I grabbed my bottle of water and felt much better. I ran at a speed that it was difficult to talk at and though it wasn’t fast compared to some of those speedy people whizzing around the track, it was faster than what I am used to. The warm down lap felt surprisingly easy after the fast laps. I'm hoping that a few mnore regualar track sessions will make my half marathin feel easy.

I finished, I survived and I was still smiling. I am determined to get quicker and I am happy to commit myself to track. I may not go all the way to Mile End every week (which really felt like Mile End on the journey home when I was ready to chew my own arm off) but I am going to venture along to my local track on the weeks  I don’t get to train with the RDC guys. It was great running with some really experienced people tonight  that were happy to share their knowledge. Thank you to @BangsandaBun and @RunUrb who encouraged me to come along and thank you to each and every person that took time out tonight to help me. Berlin Sub two hours, you will be mine!  


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