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| Back from my rainy run |
It's has been a while since I have had to wear my Montane Quickfire waterproof jacket on a run, but Saturday was one of those days. When the alarm went off at 6am I dragged myself out of bed and snuck downstairs, doing my best not to wake the rest of the house, grabbed my Garmin switched it on and opened the window to pop the Garmin on the window ledge to get a signal and realised it was raining pretty hard (arse!). Got ready, grabbed my Raid Revo rucksack with 1.6l High5 energy drink in the bladder (had not used this Rucksack for a while, but needed it to carry more fluid from the start to-day, great bit of kit) ate a pancake (not the most hearty of breakfasts for a 24mile run) and out the door into the rain. The first 3 or 4 miles the rain was pretty hard, by mile 7 it was just a light drizzle and I thought I may have overdone it with the fully waterproof jacket, also chatted with another runner for a mile or so who is training for the 16mile Kingston Breakfast Run in March.
At mile 9 I met up with Sherrine (a work colleague) who is also training for the Kingston run as she wanted to do 12miles, which would be her furthest run so far, I was of course extremely glad of the company. In my infinite wisdom (Ha!) I decided we should set off along the Thames towards Weybridge, but as the rain must have been coming down overnight the tow-path was really waterlogged and extremely muddy most of the way, and the rain did not let up. So very wet/muddy shoes and socks for most of the 12miles (sorry Sherrine), but Sherrine ran very well at a good constant pace of around 8.40, although as I had miss calculated the distance she had to stop about a mile from where we met as she had already done 12miles and didn't want to push the distance too quickly (wise choice). We said our goodbyes, and I apologised for my miss calculation and went off to finish the last 3miles, I must admit my hands were very cold by this stage and the jacket had collected a fair bit of moisture (sweat) in the forearm/elbow area so I had to hang my arms down and feel it run down and out of the jacket (nice), you eventually overwhelm any waterproof jacket with the heat you generate and it can't shift it quick enough, I think it's called MVTR - Moisture Vapour Transfer Rate. My jacket has one of the best MVTR rates so god knows what it must be like inside the jacket when wearing one with a low MVTR, bin liner springs to mind. Anyway, the last 3miles were a bit quicker as I put the Ipod on and a couple of great tracks were playing, and then I was home in around 3hrs30mins.
Met up with Debs (superstar, who is doing PR for my 4 Marathons in 24hrs challenge) for my photoshoot. Debs had picked a nice spot on the Thames opposite side to Hampton Court Palace so we would capture the palace in the background of the photos. Just my luck as I stripped down to my running gear that 4 teeange girls (maybe 14 to 16yrs old) arrived on the scene, Debs joking that my fan club had turned up, I said that it couldn't be as there were not enough and the rest would be along presently!!! I put on the Shooting Star running t-shirt that Debs had got me, I think Debs is trying to tell me something as she only had Large and X-Large with her, but in all honesty I will have to grow into the Large. The first shot was brilliant, Hampton Court and the Thames in the background and nothing in the foreground, Debs had missed me, I was obviously running too fast (possibly not). Debs got some good shots eventually, which was no easy task with what she had to work with, and hopefully some not too bad shots of me just standing and smiling and not looking too cheesy or false. I have reminded Debs to ensure the camera is set to 'George Clooney' or 'Brad Pitt' mode next time, failing that, get someone who can airbrush like a pro to take a look at the photos before we put them out for public viewing. My thanks again to Debs for all her hard work.
I managed to get out for today's run at 5.30pm, but was under instructions to be home before 7.45pm to do bedtime with the monsters aka the children. I wanted to run at easy pace so 15miles was the plan, I was pleasantly surprised on this run, significant was how low my Heart Rate was, the Average for the entire run was 126bpm at an average pace of 8min23secs per mile. So good pace for easy effort, seems like I was in that lovely running nirvana zone tonight, pity it isn't easily achieved on runs.
A solid 64.1miles for the week.
great mileage for the week. Good to see you making your way to celebrity stardom
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