Easy jog

I left the house this morning a little later than usual as I allowed myself a mini lie-in and had decided that I was only going to run a shortened route around Maisons Laffitte for about 7.5km.

It's still not light at this time of the morning but it is just before dawn and as I'm running around town, dawn begins to break and the first light of the day reveals all of the hidden potholes on the roads around town. The idea behind today's session was to take it very easy and to intersperse some faster sections at marathon speed over 300 metres.

I did a couple of these in a half-hearted manner, not bothering to measure either my speed or the distance. It was more of a "let's stretch the legs" exercise than anything more scientific. I was enjoying taking it easy to be quite honest and wondering what time I would achieve in the marathon if I took it this easy. At 5' per km, this equates to a marathon time of just over 3:30 which is fairly respectable - I could be tempted. Then I started thinking about whether I was capable of holding out at 4:15 per km for 42.2 kilometres and how it had taken me 3 marathons before I was finally able to achieve this at the 4th attempt. Proof that it isn't that straight-forward, etc., etc. Basically all of the negative thoughts that you're supposed to banish before a race were going through my mind. I've been kidding myself that I don't really care about this marathon and that I haven't got the same depth of training that I had for my last so I can just take it easy. However, I can't fool myself and I know I'll be disappointed if I don't break the 3 hour barrier.

Just when I was having all of these misgivings, I bumped into Sylvie coming into the park in Maisons Laffitte. She'd seen me running around the castle and had come to check that it was me to run a few kilometres together. It's amazing the effect of running with somebody else and having a chat can have on you. I instantly felt better and we were able to run around the park for 3 k at about 4:45 pace chatting easily. Sylvie runs in the V2 category in France (between 50 and 60 years old) and is still capable of running 10k in 39'. She told me about finishing third in her category in the European cross country championships this morning in Gand, Belgium. Quite an amazing character and very modest about her achievements.

So after adding 3 kilometres to my intended course, I left Sylvie and headed back home to run just over 10km in total in 50 minutes. Beautiful morning, temperature just perfect for running at 9°C and the run went by really quickly thanks to the company.