47 weeks, 65 miles and a greater understanding of my mask

I certainly noticed the drop in temperature this week. The ability to run without gloves is something I usually take for granted. I took Monday and Tuesday off following the long run from last weekend. Most of my midweek running consisted of running 5.4 miles without them, my fingers becoming numb at some point on each run, then me caving in and wearing them on my evening run. This happened for the 10.8 miles each day from Wednesday to Friday.

I went running on Meanwood Valley Trail with my brother Ben at 11am on Saturday morning and wore a windproof skull cap and gloves during what should have been the warmer time of the day. We covered 10.6 miles and I enjoyed the company although there was still a bit of me depending on him for directions which I shouldn’t really need considering how many times we have done that route!

I had planned on this week being lower mileage than the last few, but still wanted to test myself a bit this morning. I set off aiming for 3 laps of 7.5 miles and enjoyed listening to an American Football podcast then a horror podcast called Sirens of Scream for the first few hours. Being in my own little world was disrupted by running past a dead cat about 2.5 miles in. On my last lap there was a woman with a small child walking in the same direction about a mile away and the child was on the side of the pavement where the cat was going to be. I warned her and advised it may be worth her swapping sides with the child which seemed to be appreciated. Maybe this was due to listening to the horror podcast but I was almost relieved that it was still there as I ran past again!

I finished this without much difficulty and I was pleased that I could maintain a steady pace throughout.

I’m quite conscious that a lot of these blogs make out that the running I do in training is far easier than it actually is and definitely that my confidence is more unwavering. I think this is partly due to being written around my long training run each week and there is either a nervous overconfidence or the after effects of the long run haven’t kicked in yet!

There is a level of fortitude you gain during running which means your confidence grows during a run. The best way that I can describe it is that there is a mask I ‘wear’ whilst actually running that isn’t there when I’m not. I’ve found for specific races this can build as training goes on and can have a positive impact on my performance when I can evidence to myself Ive done similar distances and elevation in training. I think the quote below illustrates the value of this well.