Sometimes it’s nice to be able to measure your progress.
This was what I told myself last night, anyway, as I was trying to work out my
route for this morning. You see, way back in the annals of time known as Week 5
Run 3, I did my first distance run, which was 20 minutes long. For the occasion
I picked the flattest route I could, was shattered 15 minutes in and managed to
stumble along to the finish line.
Now, we’re two weeks later, with a bit more distance
running under my belt (although who wears a belt running? Maybe a black belt if
you’re running through an 80s action movie and need to defend yourself) I
figured it might be good to try and measure my progress, to see if I’ve got any
faster in the past two weeks of training.
So I set off on the same route as I took two weeks ago,
determined to show that smug me from the past that I had improved substantially
since then. I can’t let the past win; that would be madness! (In particular, a
message to future me; if you decide to race present me, I won’t begrudge you
the win if you go faster. If you go slower, though, then ha! Take that, you
lazy future person with your hoverboards and your running shoes made out of
lasers and alien tears! [I’m excited about the future]).
Unfortunately, from the word go, things were a bit odd,
since muscles in my legs that I don’t remember having before suddenly decided
they were going to be very sore and not work properly, so for the first minute
or so it felt like I’d never run before and was only just discovering that I
had limbs. So the start was less a jog and more some sort of bizarre shuffle,
like a man with a wooden leg trying to cross the massive wordsearch at the end
of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Having overcome that minor first hurdle, the running
became a bit more natural. I don’t think I slowed up too much for the first
fifteen minutes or so – occasionally I felt myself easing up a bit, and decided
to keep the pace going. I wanted to see the look on my face when I beat me
later on. (This would require the bathroom mirror and a minor piece of acting).
Part of the issue with this race was that I knew where I’d
started and where I’d finished, but no idea what any of the time markers were
in the middle. This meant that I frequently alternated between thinking I was
miles ahead of past me, and feeling that I’d never be able to catch that
arrogant young man who didn’t even know who was going to win the women’s
curling at the Olympics. (What an idiot!)
Around the 15 minute mark I started to really run out of
energy and the pace slowed slightly, as it had done two weeks ago. I don’t know
whether I would have taken it more slowly had I not had that competition to
drive me forwards, but I could see the point approaching where I’d stopped last
time, and I knew that as soon as I heard Laura speak again that would be it.
For the last 100m or so before I reached the point I’d
hit last time, I was convinced that I wasn’t going to make it as far. Even as I
got about 10m away I was sure I wasn’t going to hit it.
I ended up going about 10m further.
There was a combination of relief and no small amount of
disappointment. I think in the back of my mind I was hoping to be sprinting
past my previous stopping point and storming way into the sunset (well,
sunrise, but past me isn’t to know that), with crowds around me cheering,
throwing money and shouting “You’re the best!” That, you may be surprised to
learn, didn’t happen.
What I was slightly surprised to discover was that I
still had a reasonable amount of energy left to take on the 5 extra minutes.
Maybe I hadn’t gone faster but I was definitely able to go further than the
good-for-nothing pretender that stopped there gasping for breath. No, I stopped
gasping for breath a good half a mile further down the road. There was even a
ramping up in speed at the end.
The run felt like one of the best I’d done, and I was slightly
disappointed again when I got back and discovered that it was still just 2.5
miles, the same as I’d done on Wednesday. Still, I guess it’s only going to be
small but significant bits of progress at this point, and hopefully that’ll
continue.
To stop present me feeling too smug, on my walk back to
the house I was overtaken by a man jogging who must have been in his 70s, who
was probably jogging faster than I had been. I like to think that at some point
in the 2060s I’ll discover a time machine and come back to Kenilworth in 2014
to remind myself that there’s still plenty of work to be done.
28 minute runs next week. The final push to reach 5k
begins.
Joggy Depp
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