To Paddle or Jog, That is the Question

I had no sooner put in an entry for a half-marathon than I ran out of steam. Lately it's been hard going to get myself out of doors for any sort of a training session and last week it all came to a head on a rainy day in Richmond park. I had hoped that the race would provide an incentive to get serious about the running and get some sort of improvement above the level that I seem to have settled into. My intention that day was to get a full lap of the park in which amounts to almost exactly seven miles. This was to consolidate the previous four weeks 'long' run and to get the distance without stopping. The forecast had been for rain but the morning was just overcast and dull, but as I neared the car park the rain began and it was soon tipping it down in monsoon quantities. Although it began to abate after a while it still hadn't stopped when I gave up and drove home some half hour later through standing sheets of water and flooded roads.

The following day, and back to the Tuesday morning mob for a paddle, the first one in almost a month. The last paddle had left me with aching shoulder and neck muscles after only a short two mile trip. This time I intended to do no more than two miles but as the distance ticked up without any adverse effect I ended up doing close on to four miles over the club's H&H course. Just for a change it felt pretty good and no residual stiffness the day after. Encouraged by this I followed up last Saturday with a three mile paddle while extending the duration of the efforts I was putting in. It still went well without any side effects.

All of this has supplanted the jogging sessions. The fact of the matter is that the jogging has simply become mind buggeringly boring. I quite enjoy the ParkRuns, especially when I can produce the sort of times I expect for that day, but the endless plodding along the same old trails really isn't doing anything for me. Today should have been another long jog but as the shoulder seems to still be hanging together I took off to the Tuesday paddle session again and managed another four miles up to the flight of locks at Deepcut. The portaging of the locks will have to wait awhile yet as it would probably be pushing my luck to risk that just yet. Nevertheless, it went reasonably well as I was pushing to extend the duration of the efforts and return in a reasonable time. All in all three sessions in eight days with some improvement in each is the best I can expect just at the moment.

So, the jogging goes on the back burner at the moment. I'm not sure what to do about the 'half'. That really depends on how the boating progresses in the near future. The forecast for tomorrow is rain practically all day... Great!