Apparently the experience of two months worth of coaching sessions on Monday nights, just as it’s beginning to get dark and running around hard, metalled roads wasn’t enough to stop me from signing on for another nine week stint. The sessions start at 8 pm, just when my body is telling me that it should be beginning it’s shut down for the night and a cup of cocoa, which would be more appropriate than dragging my sorry arse out to the local recreation ground for violent exertion. The worst part, in having to postpone dinner until gone 9 o’clock, is no joke but there’s no possibility of running on a full stomach, so it has to be. Five others have also transferred over from the last group, but at least one of them hasn’t shown up for the first two sessions so far.
Two weeks into the new set of sessions has seen the group begin a new regime that at least takes over where the last one left off so it’s not just a repeat of the previous course. The initial session re-introduced hills. This time in pairs. The intention being to encourage one another to greater things as we head towards the peak of the local bridleway. Unfortunately, due to the recent heavy rain its very muddy and has to have the way picked out carefully in the encroaching gloom. It’s not too bad in the daytime when I revisited it again about a week later, but its still not ideal.
The second session, around a 500 meter loop of road was also run in pairs, (I think there’s a pattern developing here). This time one of the pair gallops around the loop and the other jogs easily in the opposite direction. On meeting up we reverse roles for the second half of the loop back to the start. Repeated half a dozen times gives a fair work out.
Part of the value of this course has been the new stretch and exercises for warm up which are beginning to make themselves felt. Several of them are new to me and are reaching places I didn’t know existed. Also new is the use of a stretch band with handles to work out individual muscle groups. Unfortunately one group in the hip has been worked out rather too well and is currently presenting something of a problem. It’s back to the old cold compress in that area for the moment.
Despite all of this the results at ParkRun haven’t been exactly spectacular and lag behind what I was achieving for a similar expenditure of effort eighteen months ago. At best I’ve managed to trim only a few seconds off each week for the last few runs. They have been:
24/2; 29:23. 17/3; 29:32 24/3; 28:58. 31/3; 28:57. 7/4; 28:06. 14/4; 28:03
I suppose that’s progress, of a sort, but I had rather hoped for better.
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