Huzzah! Perhaps my endemic pessimism has been misplaced once more?! Having had the weekend off exercise yet again, I decided to go out for a bit of a run tonight on flatter ground than I've been used to, if only so I could cover more distance. It gets a bit boring doing the same route time after time as well, so I decided to run up to Clapham Common via the delights of Kings Avenue & the South Circular, do a lap with all the hardcore joggers, and head back to Brixton through the back streets.
It's a route I followed many times whilst training for the Reading Half marathon last year, and it was nice to be back. I went out reasonably quickly but was struggling badly by the time I got to the turn for home at the top of Battersea Rise - the remaining minutes were spent doing a weird kind of "50s dance move" action with my legs as I tried to struggle home.
I'd mapped out the run on Nike's website before I left, so knew it was about 9.9km - in fact, as I have just discovered, it was actually 10.1km due to my meandering attempts to cross Brixton Hill during rush hour traffic. Ignoring the fact that my woefully inaccurate Nikeplus chip chose to knock a full 1.2km of the distance it reckons I ran - over 10 PERCENT of my total distance - I'm focusing instead on the time.
50 minutes 37 seconds. For a full 10k! Wahoo! My aim for the race in two weeks was to try and better my fastest ever run, which was 51.11 in my first ever 10k (almost 5 years ago - shudder). I'd sort of given up on it though, as my training has been disjointed, not unlike my knees. I figured get round, and try and sign up for another one towards the end of the summer when I've new trainers and no shin splints.
But maybe. Just maybe. I can do it!
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