Friday thaw

I was this close *shows no gap between fingers* to not getting out of bed yesterday when the alarm rang at 6:00am. I had just under 7 hours sleep which was almost 2 hours more than I'd managed during the rest of the week and my body was telling me that it had had enough. But a commitment is a commitment and I was glad to be able to get out for a proper run (jogging around in the snow for 7k on Tuesday night didn't count) and to put in a bit of mileage before the weekend.

The weather was warmer as the temperature had risen to 0°C ! I pulled on my kit and went outside. The car was in the drive as with the retreat of a little of the snow, I'd finally managed to get it up the slope. Unfortunately, we hadn't been so successful with the electric gate which had refused to work as soon as the thermometer dropped below zero. I had to yank it open and stepped onto to the road to wait for the Garmin to pick up the satellite signals.

The road was still very icy, although there was less snow, it had been compacted and had turned to ice in places. I started running along the road as the pavement was virtually unuseable. It felt great to be out and exercising again after a really hard week at work. I started out at a reasonable pace despite the conditions underfoot: the ice and compacted snow causing my feet to slip and slide and preventing me getting a firm grip to push off with.

I decided to make up for the 7km run earlier this week with at least 13km today. I ran the first kilometre at 4:35 pace and then continued along the river at this pace for the next few kilometres (5 extra in fact). I then hit my magic 6 kilometre mark, realised that I'd warmed up and then set about picking up the pace. I accelerated to 4:30 then 4:25 before finishing at 4:15/km pace.

13.3 km all up in 59:57 or an average of 4:31 per km.

Having managed to get the car up the drive, I couldn't turn it around when I left for work so Laurence and Henry had to push me. They were most pleased !!