Despite working perfectly last night and having been charging this morning, I got to the park and my Garmin would not switch on. It seems to have died. Problem! I had no choice but to run without it using the church clock to roughly judge my pace each lap. I wanted to try and run 9 minute miles and while I was moving I probably did that. However, without the clock visibly ticking I took a little longer each lap to have a drink and get jelly babies out of my back pack. I also stopped after six laps for an energy gel.
As I intend wearing a chest video camera at the Silverstone Half in March I thought I'd better practise running with it. I didn't switch it on to begin with and it was just as well as it was a bit loose and flopped down during the first lap. I then got my thumb caught on it and lost a ball briefly but once I'd stopped to tighten the screw I had no further problems.
It was a really nice day for running. A little cold but as my upper body is doing a lot of work too, I soon get warm. It's been the first time for a long while that all the paths have been dry which makes it a little easier on the hands but I already had a split finger before I even started today. Due to the time of year, the nature of my work (which means washing my hands all the time) and being outside a lot, my fingers are cracking and splitting. I had to bandage one up and tape the finger of a surgical glove over it to protect it. This worked well so it didn't affect my performance too badly.
It was tough doing an extra 2.2 miles on top of my last outing. There wasn't too much to report in terms of incident and comment (perhaps because people could see I had a camera strapped to me) but I did have to negotiate a large woman and her little dog who took up the whole path at one point - woman on one side (looking the other way pretending she couldn't hear me coming) and dog on the other attached by a retractable lead. I just bounced over the lead and the dog.
The major talking point came on the final lap as a council van was driving down the path. There's a really dodgy bit of path that has been wrecked by tree roots which I avoid running over, never mind bouncing balls over. As the van had taken the good bit of path I had to take the lumpy bit if I was to keep going. Sadly I hit a particularly bad lump and a ball rolled off under the van. It got caught under the double back wheels and is never going to be quite the same again!
So I did about 13.5 miles in about 2hrs 10 minutes. Slower than I wanted but I've now done the distance (for Silverstone). I'm still confident I can beat 2 hours and push for 1:55 on the day.
You can see the video of 'basketball vs van' on YouTube via this link:
https://youtu.be/F07XXhHNP00
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| I stopped each lap to keep a tally in the dirt on the car. |
