Shamefaced - no race this weekend, but two runs

The Fat Runner is embarrassed that he didn't run the Wimbledon Common Time Trial as he had promised.

Despite him receiving a lot of encouragement from some of the people who read his blog, unfortunately he got back too late from Greece on Friday night for him to get up the next morning and head down to Wimbledon for the race - this would have been his first running race ever (given that he was injured for the London tree-athlon).

So - do you think he has a valid excuse? Wednesday night - 5 hours sleep. Thursday night - 4 hours sleep. Friday flight back - landed at 2145, luggage on carousel at 2245, and home at 2330. So perhaps not a surprise he didn't wake up until 0815 on Saturday morning. I'll let you come to your own conclusions.

But the good news is that TFR did two runs - a shorter one of about 5k, and a longer one of about 8k. His pace was good for the 8k (actually 4.8 miles in 47 minutes, so 6.1 miles per hour). He also ran this without his heart rate monitor, so was a little worried about going out too fast and not being able to finish strong at the end.

The interesting thing is that he seems much better able to pace himself now, after getting used to running with a HRM. About 2 miles in, he felt as if he'd started the run a little hard. Of course, it was impossible to test his heart rate, so he just started running slower until the feeling had passed. Hopefully now that he can gauge pace better, this will lead to better overall results.

So, the learning we can take away from this is that as soon as it starts to feel really uncomfortable, slow down, and even walk if necessary. It won't be long until you can start running again and complete the session!