Well, it’s been a busy day on the blog, hasn’t it? It’s been a long time since I managed three posts in one day. I’ve done my time on the naughty step for jumping to conclusions with Sports Direct. I’m still just a little bit mad at myself, but, such is life.
Today’s session was a slow six miles, pace around 10:30 per mile. I’m very tired this week and I think it showed in my run tonight. I felt tired and a bit sluggish towards the end. I managed to keep the pace but I felt it was a bit of a hard slog. I need some sleep. I don’t know why I am so tired as I have been going to bed at the same time as always. I don’t think I’m coming down with anything. I do wonder if my body is still getting used to the extra training days. After all, since the end of October I’ve only managed every other day and virtually no Saturday runs. To suddenly throw my body into three days consecutive, rest, two days consecutive, rest, repeat may be taking its toll. It is still only the third week. Maybe it will get better in a couple more weeks.
Tomorrow should be fun as it’s one of the brisk pace runs – my favourites – as I’ve said before. Until then.
So, right, ahem, I hate this so much: I was wrong about Sports Direct. Trainers come with their sizes listed in US sizes. I live in the UK. They’re not the same. When I ordered size eight the other day, they interpreted that as US size ten, which was correct. I should have ordered size six. I was not thinking. I was thinking it says eight on my shoes. I know what size I wear in the UK. Why, as is a favourite phrase of colleagues, I did not ‘engage brain’ is beyond me. I will claim Friday night tiredness.
There is egg all over my bright red face. I feel incredibly stupid and even worse for my harshly worded email to the company. At the end of the day, though, I’ll get my money back, they get their shoes back, everyone’s happy…except I still need a pair of bloody shoes. In the words of Charlie Brown: arrrggghhhh!!!
As part of my marathon training I am supposed to enter a few races to test my fitness. One is to be on 28 March and anywhere from five miles to a half-marathon (13.1 miles). The other is to be on 11 April and a half-marathon. I’ve found two races to enter for these days. On 28 March I’ll be running a 10k (6.2 miles) in beautiful Hyde Park in central London. On 11 April I will be running a half-marathon in Paddock Wood, Kent. I just thought I’d share this with you. More details will follow and, hopefully, some pictures on the day.
I use the website MapMyRun.com to map out runs of longer miles. I have a six mile route and a five mile route near home but use this website to map out anything over 10 miles. I’ve also used it to map my run in Arkansas and one in Cardiff last autumn. It is very handy. I’ve already mapped out my upcoming 15 miler and 22 miler. I use a Garmin GPS heart rate monitor when I run. It tracks me with satellites and tells me my pace, time and distance covered. It also tells me my heart rate and calories burnt. It is the best gadget I’ve ever bought, hands down. I plug it into my computer via USB and I can see every second of my run graphed out by heart rate, pace, elevation, percentage of maximum heart rate, etc. I discovered this evening that I can also upload this data to MapMyRun.com as a route. I was going to start putting a couple of maps up on here so you can see where I run. This makes that a whole lot easier. So, here you go. Here is my run from this evening, the speed work.
There should be a map here but it doesn’t seem to be working. You can, however, go to this link and see the map. I will try again tomorrow. I’m hoping it’s a problem with their website.
As you can see it is a seven mile run in total. That includes my warm up walk/jog and cool down walk home. I won’t upload a map every day as, for the most part, this route is where I am most of the time. I’ll be running it again tomorrow night to cover six miles. My other six mile route mentioned above is not feasible in the winter as there are no street lights in one section. I tried it once, couldn’t see my hand in front of my face for several minutes until a car went by, and now only run it in daylight at the weekends until summer brings us longer daylight hours. I’ll upload again on Sunday when I do a longer nine mile route. It will likely include Epsom again. Look out mainly for the 13 miler and above as they’ll have me going much more further afield.
Today was a speed work day: 1 mile warm up at slow pace; 1 mile at fast pace (8:40ish) with 400m (.25 miles) recovery and repeat two more times for a total of 3 laps; 1 mile cool down at slow pace. This was done in the steady rain. I was splashed by at least three cars. I had to go into the road at one point because some girl decided her and her boyfriend needed the whole pavement to walk. I was soaking wet and freezing cold by the end of the last mile and ready to get home to the warmth. I had worn my compression tights as they seemed to be a bit more water resistant than my others. Unfortunately they don’t protect against cold as well. My upper thighs are still getting the feeling back in them now.
In some ways these runs are the best simply because the rain and cold just spur me on to go faster. On the other hand, I am counting down each minute, each mile until I be inside where it is warm and dry. Yin and yang, as it were. I suppose, if nothing else, it means I am hardcore. Like the US Mail I run in the rain, sleet and snow. Now that we’ve got the cheese factor out of the way, in all seriousness it was a good run tonight. I felt far more comfortable running the fast pace repeatedly; much better than last week. Tomorrow is a slow run of six miles. Until then.
It’s a rest day today but I felt I had to write about this. My current running shoes are over the 500 mile mark which generally means they need to be replaced. Shoes are not cheap. In trying to save money I found my shoes (Asics Gel 1140) on Sports Direct.com. They were only £38 a pair because they were the spring/summer 2009 colour. I ordered two, thinking bargain! Was I wrong.
They arrived today. I opened one box, looked at the shoes and thought ‘they look big’. Turns out they’re a size ten! I ordered a size eight. The boxes both say size eight so I thought, fair enough one pair has been mistakenly put in this box. I opened the other box only to find another size ten! I am livid. I was counting on these shoes arriving today and using them tomorrow. I can continue with my current pair but do need to get some new ones soon. I will be going to Sweatshop in Teddington or up to the Asics store in central London on Saturday.
I’ve emailed the company to inform them of this appalling customer service and to demand a refund. I have to send these shoes back via Royal Mail, which Sports Direct indicate they will not cover. In my email I’ve demanded that they refund my postage as well because it is completely their fault that I am having to return them in the first place. I just could not believe that a company could be so piss-poor as to send you not one but two wrongly sized shoes. I have also indicated in my email that I will be informing friends and family not to use them. This officially covers that threat.
Long run Sunday: 8 miles, slow pace, easy peasy, lemon squeezy. I didn’t meet as many runners today as I did last Sunday. I suppose the drizzly cold weather may be putting some off and hoping it’ll clear later on. Rest day tomorrow. It makes me love Mondays. Lazy Sunday now. Off to Asda for shopping and maybe a spot of driving. Enjoy your Sunday.
It’s Saturday, which, from here on out, for the most part, means four very easy miles. We’re talking 10:35-10:55 speed: very slow, nearly walking. It is certainly nice not to face an ultra hard session on a Saturday morning. I may not blog every Saturday since it will be the same mileage and pace. I will say that today I felt very good after my run. I enjoy meeting other runners on the way. I always, always give a little wave and maybe a smile. It makes me feel better and, I hope, it makes them feel better. I know that when someone gives me a little wave it makes me smile and motivates me to go a bit faster or longer or just enjoy the run a bit more. Running can get tedious, you can get bored and you can lose your enjoyment of the run. Anything that helps alleviate this is always welcome.
Good evening. Another cold one out there. Today I ran a mile warm up at easy pace; two miles at ‘brisk’ (9:08-8:48) pace; and another mile cool down at easy pace again. I’ll be honest, the old legs are feeling a bit tired so I’m looking forward to rest day tomorrow and very easy four miles on Saturday. Now, I just need it warm up or to find a better running jacket. Perhaps that’s a goal for Saturday.
