Pizza and wine makes you feel fine.

So Wednesday’s run didn’t quite go to plan.  I got a call from Richard who was up in London on business from his home in sleepy Devon.  Obviously I couldn’t abandon the chap to a lonely night in a faceless hotel in Euston, with only a curled up cheese sandwich from room service to look forward to, so being a good friend I sacrificed my training session and went out with Rich and imbibed several pints of strong ale, some crostini, a massive pizza, a bottle of red wine and finished off with a cheeky limoncello.  Ah, the things we do for our mates.

Last night I obviously had to make amends.  I had to pop the ticket money from our clergytastic thespian endeavours in to the church treasurer, so I decided to run to her house and kill two birds with one stone. I know it had only been Monday since I’d last been out running but for some reason it felt much longer and it was good to head off out the door again. The run up there was conducted at a very steady if rather leisurely pace, and after a brief chat on the doorstep my breathing and heart rate were almost back to normal.

As Thursday night is hill session night I had intended to carry on to where I do my reps, but time was against me so that idea was ditched in favour of the pea and pancetta pasta that the lovely Kerry was preparing for me at home.  However I started feeling a bit guilty, and with the spectre of “junk miles” looming over my shoulder I decided to up the quality of the session and turn it into a fartlek run.  Using alternate lampposts as my markers I speed-played all the way home and what was in danger of becoming all a bit mediocre turned into a really uplifting run. I’ve only done one fartlek session this year so it felt really good to push my body to near its limits.  I arrived home panting and sweaty and basked in the glow for the rest of the evening.  I’m not sure that the efforts countered the massive calorie intake of Wednesday night but the final stats of 44:22 for 4.85 miles made me happy! 

As a footnote I have recently signed up to the Fetcheveryone website (Clicky clicky) and joined the “1000 miles in 2011” group.  As I only completed just over 500 miles in the last twelve months it is a bit of a step up, but so far I’m pretty much on track and it’s good to have a goal!  My other group is the “Sub 2 hour half marathon” one, although I’ve actually gone under two hours on seven previous occasions I haven’t done it since 2007, so it’s also given me a bit of performance related focus to my running.  My first attempt is going to be at the Fleet Half Marathon on March 20^th so we’ll see how that goes!  It’s a rest night tonight but I feel a bit of cross country in the offing for Saturday.  TTFN. (S)