Another faltering run

I think the #snow is really starting to get to me now. There is my inner child who is still loving it. And there is my inner grown up child up who is delighted at having worked from home for 3 days last week. There is however the runner in me who is going a bit mental with it.

I set out today to get up to that 16km mark. I thought I would counter the snow and the hills by slowing down to about 8.5-9 kmh and I should be comfortable at that. I mean I did 5 km a couple of weeks ago at 9 and hardly broke a sweat so I figured I should be able to push myself a bit more and drag myself to 16km if I go a bit slower. Sound reasoning, yes? No.

I managed about 6k before things started to go a bit wrong. I didn't lock the display in my Garmin watch properly so it kept randomly changing display, it ended up doubling the speed of my virtual partner, it started beeping randomly and I got my rhythm completely screwed up. So I figured it would be a good time to stop and have a snack. So I pulled out a cereal bar thinking that the sugar in it would give me an energy boost to push through for at least another 5k.

Unfortunately it was downhill from there. My shorts started to slide down my legs.  I should emphasise at this point that I was wearing two layers on top of my shorts so I had no indecent exposure of any kind, but it really made it hard to run in any sort of rhythm. I lasted another 4k, then had to stop. Tried to adjust my leg wear slightly, with minimal success. Had my other cereal bar and hoped it would power me through the last 6k.

I lasted 2k more, before my legs pretty much gave way. I think the combination of my clothes, my watch, the snow, my lack of stamina and endurance all kind of combined to screw me over for the day.

So were there any positives? Well last week I did 12.5k in 1h 34m, averaging 7:35 per km. This week I did 12k in 1h 26m, averaging 7:13 per km. The terrain was much more challenging as well - shows a definite improvement in my book. Even if I walked the last 500m to get to the same distance, it wouldn't have taken me 8m (I hope!)

Back to work tomorrow, gym Tuesday. Next run is Wednesday - I will probably go for a short 5-6km one and try to build some speed in that. I did 5k on Wednesday this week in 32:37. Want to try to get that down ideally to 31:00 and if its warmer and not icy, possibly aim for 30:00 even.

We'll have to see how it goes I guess.