And so day two wrapped up as smoothly as I could have hoped for. Other than managing to get completely lost on the way to the start due to an unusual failure of the Sat Nav that is.
Today's route was simple. An out and back along a flat trail. As a bonus, is was in the heart of the Severn valley so the views were good when I was looking around for them. There was an interesting looking castle or fortified manor that we passed each time which I'll investigate the details of a little when I get home. Actually, I probably will not do that, but I will add it to the list of interesting things that I have been able to see this year without the time to follow up on which I will feel bad about.
Having managed to arrive late, I set off eight minutes or so after the main group. It was not likely to be a problem as I was not expecting to spend much time running with anyone else. I had a game plan in mind, a hundred metre walk followed by nine hundred metres of jogging. Watch will beep after a kilometre and time to rinse and repeat. I was not going to look at the paces, just the heart rate, and during the hundred metre walk I would check the distance to keep me honest. It can be tempting to choose a point a little further away to pick up the pace to a jog, particularly toward the end of a long day.
And my day was not a long day. Not mentally anyway. Near to five hours of running for just the distance of a marathon is obviously not exactly chewing up the ground but other than an uncomfortable twenty minutes or so while jogging (and walking) toward the portaloo, it passed. The good thing about having a tight loop of things do to and the kilometres passed while deciding if there was anything needed during the next walking break. Hence the beautiful sights passing by unseen, by me, at least.
And evening number three at the bunkhouse. I am a little tired but those evenings dedicated to just recovery have helped keep it under control to the point where I think I will wake up with my alarm in the morning. And most happily, my legs are functioning perfectly well. I know the route tomorrow, being a repeat of Monday, and I am actually looking forward to it. The loop has two hills which are not too steep and are perfect for recovery and nutrition. I'm sure the time will fly.
And I very much doubt that there will be an update on these events in the short term. Having time to burn while recovering in these hills of an evening has provided the ring-fenced time to write. Having access to the normal pursuits of an evening from tomorrow will almost certainly draw my attention away. I guess that normal does not apply to people running three marathons in three days, or people running fifty two marathons in a year, but then where on the scale would you put the people who chose to start these three marathons early so that they could do three ultras, or the guy who are currently going to sleep to start their twelfth marathon in twelves days in the morning, another guy who is looking to run a hundred marathons this year and has run twelve in March alone, or the guy who sleeps in his car near each race start and heading off afterward to make his way to the next start line, wherever that might be.
No comments:
Post a Comment