Still Marching on

I've been quiet of late. Mainly due to the tablet lying hidden at the bottom of the toy box for 6 weeks. In good news, my running hasn't been so badly neglected. It's been a plodding phase of one or two runs per week, plus my usual cross training. Hopes of more strategic training  for my 10k have been thwarted by feeling poorly, and a busy phase at work. A weekend away meant none of my usual fitness routine, but that was more than mitigated by it being the International Fitness Showcase. The Saturday saw 7 hours of aerobics, dance and urban bootcamp. The Sunday saw some restorative pilates!  I enjoyed it much more this year as a result of my improved fitness and stamina. This time last year, I was completing the C25k, and had less than 3 months of serious exercise behind me as I recovered from the toll of baby 2.

One of the attractions of running at the moment, is that it's a measure of my fitness. I've kept a log since the start, and have done about 95 runs now. By the time I've do the 10k, I should have done my 100th. My current plan is to use the Easter holiday to polish pace a bit more. I can do the distance,  and know that I mentally find races easier for keeping going in a pack and having a crowd of support. This one will also be easier for being flat compared to my neighbourhood. No up hills will help my pace on the day. I'm still hoping to run it in an hour.

Last night I focused on pace. I was slightly under target, but that wasn't helped by strong head winds while running up hill. My other challenge of the evening was losing my gloves. As I lapped past the house, I pushed them into a bush, but failed to find them on my return. Fortunately that was down to struggling to see grey gloves in dark green foliage by the LEDs on my cap, as I managed to see them easily enough by daylight.

For my birthday a few weeks back, I got a GPS watch with HR monitor.  I'm finding it more reliable than my previous one. Also the GPS signal is being more reliable, and not creating some random declartions of sucess like 3 minute miles. Being able to break the recordings into sections is quite interesting for my inner geek! Hopefully I can use it in a meaningful way to boost my speed.