Recovery run

Went for a quick run this morning to get rid of the tiredness in my legs. Plan to go to the club session tonight to carry on the marathon training as this is the last hard week before a 2 week taper. My legs, most especially my thighs, had just about recovered from Saturday's ordeal. Yesterday, they felt like somebody at been at them with a hammer and tongs, but today they were bearable. The hills and the climbing had been hard on the quads and I understood what Tom felt like when he said that hills still scare him - I feel the same way. The slightest bit of uphill and I'm ready to stop running and walk.

I left with the intention of taking it easily and I ran that way down to the river for the short route around town. The first 2 kilometres I didn't look at the Garmin and tried to focus on the 'easy' part of my recovery run. Nothing was easy this morning though. My legs felt as though I was dragging them along the road rather than them carrying me. It felt like running through a thick lumpy porridge, not that I do this very often I hasten to add. When I went through the 3rd kilometre, I allowed myself a quick glance at the Garmin. In the half-light, due to having put the clocks forward by an hour this weekend, I could only make out a '4' of the lap time and it looked like 5:04 for this interval. I wasn't surprised as it felt really slow too.

At this point, my logic and reasoning, of which I'm rather proud I have to admit, went out of the window to my emotions. You can't let yourself run this slowly, you are worth more than this, etc., etc. went through my mind and the recovery run theory went out of the window simultaneously. I upped the pace and when the Garmin beeped to signal the next kilometre, it was too dark again to see how fast I'd run. I carried on heedless (in geordie this sounds as though no reasoning is involved which is a perfectly accurate description of my state of mind at this point) and continued to try and force myself to run just a little faster. At the next lap I was able to see the time of 4:37 which reassured me that my tiredness was not in total vain.

I carried on and ran faster until the end as my legs began to wear off their tiredness. All up in 36:20 so an average of 4:46 per km. Could have been worse I suppose. I'll see how I fare up tonight at the club.