Measured by times on the various ParkRuns I've reached something of a plateau with my jogging. I wouldn't really dignify what I do as 'running' but such as it is, it's served its purpose to keep some sort of a level of fitness while paddling has been out of the question. Unfortunately it's all been a bit hit and miss, probably due to insufficient time spent on my feet. At this stage I should be regularly in the 24 minute slot but that isn't happening. I've only once clipped inside the 25 minute time, now nearly a year ago and only just at 24:59 at that.
I only managed one ParkRun over the last three weeks, right at the end of January which netted an official time of 26:53. Very disappointing as I'd managed 26:34 two weeks previously and I'd put in a couple of good sessions in the preceding week. One was a longer jog than usual around Richmond park's perimeter of seven miles, finishing with a hard push up the hills at the end. The second session on the Thursday was at a faster pace which produced a 27:40 around the flatter Bushy PR course.
I had been hoping to get a time for the ParkRun a lot closer to the start of 25 minutes than the end of 26, but I shouldn't have been surprised as the usual ten seconds were lost to the start along with a glitch of some sort in the event's recording system which gave me the time for the 209th place instead of the 203rd place ticket I was handed at the finish. On top of that a full frontal wind gusting all the way up the last mile probably put paid to anything better than the previous time. However, my watch time showed 26:45 when stopped in the finish funnel.
Lately I've intended to introduce a bit more speed work into the jogging that I do. I returned to the hills the week following the ParkRun and backtracked along the course to have another hills session. Although this is rather more 'strength' classified, I'm looking to bring down the time spent covering that last sodding mile to a consistent sub nine minute time which is where I suspect I'll make the greatest inroad to the overall best time. The weather was absolutely foul on parking up at Roehampton gate car park which gave me a shorter jog over the last part of the course (again) plus another hill that is a long slope of about a half mile, which increases towards the end. Jogging this route gives me five similar hills to negotiate which I pushed as hard as I could leaving me to stop/walk/jog to recover at the breast of each incline. The return distance put the overall distance up to about 3 miles. Two days later it was back to Bushy and around their course using the first mile as a warm up, then into six efforts of one minute 'eyeballs out' with two minute recovery as measured on the Gymboss. In comparison to the hills this was almost a pleasure and allowed a bit of indulgence in working up a fair sustained speed
With Saturday's arrival I'd used just about used everything and couldn't convince myself that there would be anything to profit to get out in the pouring rain, drive through standing puddles on the road to get to the ParkRun, and paddle around the course with aching legs, so I gave it a miss. That was probably a mistake, but to make up for it I took on Richmond's perimeter track again for another seven miles on Monday and still ending up pushing the hills hard.
This week I gave one of the jogging sessions over to another try out on the water. The last effort, about three weeks ago when I had covered about four miles, had left my left shoulder sore for almost a week. This time I took the Laance back to the Wey and paddled my mile strip from New Haw for the first time in a year. I feel sure that a lot of the trouble I experience is because my style is carp and I know that I pull the blade too far past my waist thus wasting energy and putting an abnormal load onto the shoulder muscles and tendon once it gets past level.
Using the wing paddle again I was taking it slowly and concentrating on getting the stroke right, particularly the exit of the paddle level with my waist while bringing the whole stroke forward, entry at feet and exit at waist with the upper hand higher to get a more vertical entry of the paddle. Occasionally it seems to come together and the boat feels as if it's starting to respond so there's an element of improvement to be had if I can ingrain a new set of movements into the psyche. All in all it's rather like starting all over again, and I haven't even begun on the leg movements yet. It wasn't a particularly pleasant experience and on the return my shoulder and neck muscles felt to be tightening up and were sore afterwards. It's gonna take an awful lot of work.
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