6 weeks, 71 miles and some inspiration from when sport is prophetic.

My week began with 4 laps of Post Hill Woods on Tuesday morning. These were quite difficult and my legs still felt heavy from last week. Luckily Thursday morning’s 4 laps was a lot more comfortable and I gained some confidence from this for the longer distances I’d have to cover later in the week.

Having chickened out of a possible 3rd morning starting at 4:15am on Friday, I forced myself to head out for 4 laps at 4:30pm after work before collecting my wife from work, then another 4 laps starting again at 7:20pm. This was definitely useful for reminding myself how to grit my way through a run where my legs are shot! I had ran the first 4 in just under 1:20 and paid for it when starting again for the second 4.

Yesterday was great because I managed 7 laps in the morning and 7 in the evening without any negativity setting in about my earlier training or capability of finishing either outing. I had come across a podcast called Buffering The Vampire Slayer. This is a pod where 2 lesbians discuss the symbolism, character development and cultural references linked to each episode of the show, I started with the pilot episode and could remember most of the scenes they were referring to, which was a glorious way of killing the last 45 minutes of my morning run.

My last bit of running for this week was a final 4 laps in considerably more discomfort than usual. My legs had chafed a bit yesterday evening and I couldn’t really get into any sort of rhythm with each stride feeling like a considerable effort. I got round in a very slow 1:47 which was over half an hour slower than my PB for 4 laps.

The main source of my motivation for this week was around the start of the NBA basketball finals and hype about if LeBron James can lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to upset the Golden State Warriors team. I really like the speed of basketball and how a lot of the movement is anticipatory. Because I tend to follow collision sports like American football and rugby most of the year, the slight of hand in passing and tactics of moving round rather than through opposition is very clever to watch in real time. There are occasionally examples in football of this done well which is probably because they also have to maximise the use of space and because the ball can be passed in all directions there is more freedom to do this than American football and rugby have.

It was very useful that for each of my training runs this week, I had a sense of what was coming and although the two 7 lap efforts yesterday is the furthest I have covered in a day in those Woods, I was never in doubt about finishing regardless of the weather.

I really liked this quote about the prophetic element of elite sports.