Matt Gibson | Matt Gets Running

Odd Clothing Combination

This morning, I put on my wooly hat before heading outside, on the grounds that it was ‑1ºC. Then I got out into the street, turned around, and went back for my sunglasses. I definitely needed both, which is a combination I’ve not found necessary since the last time I went snowboarding…

As the rest of the UK gets blanketed with lovely snow, Bristol was being its usual recalcitrant self by having such a lovely clear day that if there were leaves on the trees, you’d have thought it was July. Until your nadgers dropped to the ground with a clang, anyway. I even jogged past a highly-optimistic ice cream van.

Because I did 10K last weekend, I figured I’d just do a simple, short run in the sun today, so I did my shortest Downs-based run, a smidge over 5K, and then went and got an amaretto latte from Coffee #1. Nice and simple.

This week, I’m going to do at least one run before Christmas, and I might make it a harbourside run, just to mix things up a bit. Until then, enjoy the snow, if you’ve got it!

Frosty!

IMG_0508 2.JPG Wow. That was cold! According to my weather widget, it was 0ºC outside when I started this evening’s run. And I can definitely believe it.

I added gloves and a hat to my usual outfit on the way out. And it wasn’t too bad once I’d warmed up. And at least it wasn’t raining. But I’m going to have to get some jogging bottoms, or leggings‑y things (the latter, I would wear under my shorts, not wishing to inflict on anyone the sight of my arse in something that’s effectively a pair of tights.)

I’m heading into town tomorrow, so maybe I’ll see what TK Maxx have. As I’ve observed before, actual running shops are useless for this sort of thing, as they assume runners are all fit and shapely. So if a running shop stocked anything that would fit at the waist, the legs would be about a metre too long for me…

Anyway. I did another nice, simple 5K today, and it was better than last time, back to my usual pace, and the only problem I had apart from the wind-chill was the occasional patch of ice to avoid. Luckily the pavement was never more than half-covered over, so there was plenty of room to run around the frozen puddles.

Not sure what I’m going to do, next week — it will be Christmas, after all! — but assuming I do get out, I think I’ll try making one of my runs a twice-around-the-harbourside affair. I’m getting a bit bored with the Portway, especially in the dark…

Today’s picture is one of the cute mini mince pies a colleague at work brought in for us all 🙂

Soggy Slog

Today was a bit crap. It was cold, wet, and I wasn’t in the mood. But I got out and did a desultory 5K anyway, which I guess counts for something.

The first run after a long run is definitely hard work. Certainly I’ve not noticed an exception to that rule yet. I left it an extra day, after Sunday’s 10K, and set out just to do 5K fairly steadily, as I figured it might be bad.

But hey, it wasn’t awful. I just slogged my way through it, and 5K doesn’t seem like a long way, as it used to. Knowing I could do it twice over on a good day makes it easier to get through on a bad one…

Anyway. This post is more for the purposes of record, rather than entertainment, so I’ll leave it here.

Another 10K

Definite rule of running: once you’ve done a distance once, it’s a lot easier, psychologically, to do it again. Today I was feeling pretty good, and I’d had a decent night’s sleep, and the weather looked okay, so I decided to do 10K again.

And here it is on RunKeeper.com. It was actually 10.42km, about the same as my previous long run, and in about the same time. In fact, due to a nice bit of synchronicity, the last every-5-minute reminder I heard from RunKeeper was “Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes. Distance: Ten point zero zero kilometres”. So now know I can do 10K in exactly an hour and a quarter, even starting with a big hill. Yay!

Also, that time includes a few seconds stopping to take a picture. Today’s pic is the rather lovely collection of trees in the middle of Durdham Down, it looks to me as if it’s three separate trees, and also one single tree, all at the same time. A kind of distributed tree 🙂

Bad 5

Despite today’s picture, it wasn’t actually a bad 5K. This is just something written on the Portway pavement that I’ve been meaning to take a photo of for months. Today I did simple 5K, with no glamour and nothing to talk about of note.

So, bearing in mind I’m crazy busy and a bit tired, I’m going to leave this right here…

[EDIT: Ooops! I forgot to post this on Thursday, too, so it’s late as well as short!]

Deep Six

…well, deep puddles, anyway. I want to push my weekday runs out a bit further, so I figured I’d do 6K this evening. It varied between drizzle and outright rain, but it was still good. I felt fine, and kept up a nice pace. About the only thing that wasn’t great were my calves/ankles, and I think that’s probably because I forgot to stretch after Sunday’s run. D’oh.

So, a nice, simple 6K, in just a smidge under 40 minutes, at an average pace that’s faster than I was doing 5Ks in the dry a month ago. Cool.

Didn’t take any photos tonight — my camera lens would’ve been covered in rain in seconds — so here’s one from Friday, where similar, if slightly less rainy conditions prevailed 🙂 As usual, click through it for Flickry goodness.

Back to Basics

Bearing in mind all the rain we’ve had recently, I’ve been pretty lucky with the running. It was gorgeous this morning, brilliant sunshine and not even that cold.

As well as this one of the winter trees, there’s a couple on Flickr taken from the same point on the Portway, one looking out of town, and one looking back toward the suspension bridge.

After last weekend’s 10K extreme, I stuck to a simple five-and-a-bit K, averaging a nice 7‑and-a-half minutes per kilometre, including the slow struggle up Bridge Valley Road.

I went into Coffee #1 in Clifton Village for my now-traditional vanilla latte. But they apologised before I’d even said “hi”, as they were out of vanilla syrup. And they gave me amaretto for free instead, which was lovely of them.

And that was my morning jog.

5K, with occasional stops

Tonight I realised I was tired of jogging without photos, so I grabbed my camera and a mini-tripod on the way out. I took a nice steady jog, starting a little further out on the Portway than normal, and made my “halfway” point a little further on, too.

Then on the way back, especially toward the end of the run, after 4+ km, I stopped every now and again to take a photo. I got two or three good ones (it’s tough to get good night photography with a compact camera and a tiny tripod in the rain!)

All in all, I did a rather raggedy 5K. But hey, it was late, and I was tired.

I don’t have time to process all the photos, so for now, here’s one that caught my eye as I was grabbing them from the memory card. This is a view from the footbridge I use to get to the Portway, looking back towards Bristol over Cumberland Basin.

Simple and Steady…

IMG_0461 2.jpg …that’s me.

Remembering how rubbish I felt on my first run after doing 8K, I figured I’d best be careful for my first run after 10K.

This time I left three clear days after my long run before getting back out on the road. It seems to have had the right effect. The simple 5K I just did wasn’t brilliant, but it wasn’t terrible. And I came in at a normal pace, comfortably under 35 minutes.

So, I think that’ll be the plan in future — after a big push on in distance, give myself a few days of recovery time before running again. Seems to work.

I didn’t see anything particularly thrilling on the Portway, so tonight’s picture isn’t from my run, it’s from my walk home. I figured I might as well get into the Christmas spirit; this was my first run of December, after all!

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 🙂