The Sulgrave Route, take 2

I had initially thought Ant and I weren't going to be manage a run this weekend, and that I would have to go out on my own. I was at work during the morning, and Ant was meant to be at work all day. But he had an appointment move so we found the time to fit a run in.

The week it was my choice of run, either the 4 mile cross country route or the 5.25 mile Sulgrave run. As the weather had been less than ideal, I imagined that the cross country route would be quite hard going in the cold and the mud, so we went on the longer, mainly road, run. It was 5C after all! The previous run we did had a time of 1 hr, 1 min, 13 secs. I asked Ant to push us for a good sub 1 hour time.

So off we went, and things were a bit difficult initially. I was struggling to get my breathing coordinated and keeping a rhythm was hard. My legs felt heavy, and I was beginning to worry a bit about the run. But after about a mile or so, everything seemed to smooth out.

I've been reading up on running with asthma, and quite a lot of folk seem to suggest that something similar happens to them. After something like a warm up period, where breathing is hard, their asthma seems to calm down and let them run normally. Others suggest pushing hard for a short period before backing off to achieve the same thing. I guess it's something I will have to experiment with to see what works best for me.

So once my breathing calmed down, my running seem to be a lot more fluid. I was tempted to say easier, but that's not quite the right word. Running isn't easy, but I felt more in tune with it. I guess that's why I made it to the 2.75 mile mark without stopping, and even when I did stop it was only for 5-10 secs. I was really pleased to have made it further than before, and then when I did stop it was for so little time. The next time I needed to pause was for a quick toilet stop at the end of the first road section at 3.5 miles.

As we had run past Sulgrave Manor, where I am planning on hosting a charity auction next year, Ant decided to take a photo or two. They show both the splendour of the Manor, and that I really need to have shave! Should anyone reading this have something that might be suitable for a charity auction, please get in touch. The wider the selection we have, the more money we can raise for MacMillan!!

Once again, the damp fields were a welcome change from the hard road surface. The first field is more of a paddock, and as such the softer surface is so much nicer to run on and I seemed to speed up quite a bit. I certainly caught Ant up quickly if nothing else!

With the mile or so of cross country, and a new solar farm, done we were back on the roads. This also meant the last short but steep hill into the village. As it's so steep, it's a killer so close to the end. I made it to the top, but only just, before having to drop to a walk for a few seconds. From here it was the fast run that was meant to finish the run the first time, but I knew we'd be going past the turn this time so I was able to keep going a little further. As we made the turn back to Ant's he would normally sprint off up the slope, leaving me to follow on behind. But this time I was able to keep with him for the first 100 yards or so, slightly to his surprise! The last 80-90 yards he did get ahead as my legs were getting wobbly by this point!

Once I had my usual pint of squash in hand, Ant shared the good news with me. We did indeed beat the 1 hour target. In fact, we even beat the 55 minute mark. Not by a massive margin, but the time was much better than I aimed for at 54 min, 53 secs. So that sprint finish really does help! I was really pleased at the time, as it's more than 6 minutes better than last time. This level of progress is really helping with my motivation now it's starting to get cold and dark.

The below charts show two things of note. The first is that the time per mile is down from 11 min 40 sec last time to a much better 10 min 33 sec. That's quite a change in only 3 weeks! It's also pretty much the pace I need to maintain if I want to finish the marathon in 4hr 30mins. The other thing is that the lower chart shows how quickly we set out. And it was a bit too fast really. Whilst some drop off is expected toward the end of the run, setting out at 9 mins a mile is a bit much for my current level of running. That might help explain why I struggled a bit at the start too.