Where did that come from?

I don’t know when this week became the week to push and to prove myself. But apparently it did.

I should have got out running last night, but I was knackered after work, so I did what any brave and stout young fellow would have done: gave up on the idea and went to bed early.

This morning, though, feeling fresh as a daisy and clearly a bit guilty about not doing 5K last night, I trotted out onto the Portway for my usual weekend plod. But during the warmup, probably only a few minutes in to Dire Straits’ Telegraph Road — great music for pushing yourself up Bridge Valley Road to, by the way — I decided to make up for last night’s lost distance.

So, doing a bit of quick geographical planning in my head, I took the route that got me through 8K the other weekend, and added an extra loop of Durdham Down to it.

And here’s the result:

Yup. 10K. Or, as I heard it in my head when I finished — and you’ll have to pardon my French — “ten fucking kilometres”.

In fact, a little bit more than that, as I was so close to my normal finish point when I’d completed 10K exactly that I decided to push on and do the extra few hundred metres, just to get to the lamp post outside the Avon Gorge Hotel that I traditionally slap to mark the end of my long runs.

And I’m faster than I figured I would be, too, especially considering I started off with the usual big hill. Looking at it, I think I came in comfortably under an hour and a quarter for the 10K. Nice.

Anyway, I’m a bit hungry now, for some reason, so it’s time to demolish the baguette and fruity flapjack I just bought from Chandos Deli…

I think I should probably give myself another couple of days off now, so I’ll probably catch up with you again on Monday 🙂