Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
Haring Through The Haar
by Russell Turner - 13:43 on 07 March 2018
My choice not to run yesterday was a wise one. At 9am today the day was cool but the sun shone and there wasn’t a breath of wind. Perfect, apart from the soon-to-be-discovered post-downpour streams running across the roads, which led to slightly damp feet. Fortunately there were no blistery consequences.
I’d intended to start the run along the same route I’d covered the last couple of times until I saw haar in the distance and turned instead towards Jemimaville. This worked for 30 minutes, until the haar swept across the firth. Although it was light, I turned around, unwilling to face oncoming traffic if the haar became thicker – the sense of that decision confirmed ten minutes later by the 4x4 driver who claimed not to have seen me despite me being at the point of emerging back into sunlight from the last wisps of mist. He obviously saw my “move over” hand gestures though.
Last Sunday was the day when, in a perfect training world, I would have entered a half marathon and learned what it’s like to run alongside lots of other people. As none were logistically suitable, many weeks ago I put my name down for the Nairn 10k. Injury put paid to that, although I’d already decided not to take part because trailing in at the end (I’d checked the times of last year’s runners) risked a damaging blow to my athletic confidence.
However, as I’d arbitrarily set today’s running time at 70 minutes I thought there was a good chance of adding the first 10k distance to my Garmin page. I managed it – just – hitting 6.21 miles at 1:09:34. Another milestone, even if it’s not one to boast about.
The good news was that I completed the run on healthy legs. Less good was the discovery that my Garmin has a “heart rate too high” warning function, activated by my attempt to complete the last quarter-mile uphill. It calmed down after I turned and finished in the opposite direction. Afterwards, walking up the hill caused no bother to me or my wristwear.
So my recovery continues apace. All being well, on Friday (or, possibly, Saturday) I’ll pass eight miles inside 90 minutes, which would be my third-longest distance. It’s still a long way to 26.2 miles, and there's only just over six weeks to reach it, but I’m optimistic.
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