Hard times

It has been a tough day of running today. The long cross country run this morning went pretty well. I felt pretty good, the tides were right for a good run, at the end I came away pleased. The only negative was that I got rained on several times. But even that wasn't to bad. All up that run went alright.

But my intervals session this afternoon, man what an effort. The idea of heading out the door and going running was sending shivers of apprehension down my spine.


My legs are still carrying a fair bit of fatigue from the long cross country run on Sunday and everything that has happened since then has only added more. My legs have felt heavy just walking around during the day, let alone running some more. By mid morning I just couldn't see how I was going to get myself out running again today. I was pretty close to justifying an afternoon off to myself.

But I have always found that the human body has an amazing ability to over rule the brain sometimes. Something for which I have been very grateful on a number of occasions. While my mind was busy over thinking it and coming up with excuses to stay inside, my body went out for an interval session. In the end my mind didn't have a lot of choice but to go along too.

I wish I could say the session was epic, but it wasn't. It was hard. Once I got going the fatigue in my legs was less than my mind had built it up to be, but it was still there.  My times for the intervals were quicker than the goal times, but they were far from blistering and far from my best. But, and this is the most important bit, it got done. I often think that going fast in a race is all about sessions like this. I think if you look closely at the people at the pointy end of a race, and compare them to everyone else, a big part of the reason they are at the pointy end is sessions like this.

Anyway enough of that. What about the most important part of Tuesday. Tuesday Stacks. For those who read last Tuesday's blog you may recall that last week I ran into a fence whilst doing my Tuesday morning cross country run. Well, I am glad to say that this morning there were no fences. In fact I got pretty close to getting through this morning's run without landing on my face in any way. There had been a few near misses, a few stumbles, but no major trips to the ground. I was getting towards the end of the run and was just beginning to think that I had managed to get away with it, but sadly, it was not to be. It took until the last little bit of beach running, the last 60 seconds or so, but I managed to clip a rock with my toe and went head first into the beach. I do find that consistency is the key when it comes to training.