Seasons turn

It is weeks like this one that make me remember every year why Autumn is my favourite time of year. The mornings are cool without being quite cold yet. The days are glorious affairs that make you glad you are outside, or wish you were if you aren't. Yep sure, it is forecast to rain later this week, but this is autumn rain, so you know its heart won't really be in it, if it bothers raining at all. Great days for exercise, perfect mornings for cycling.

I know Spring has a lot of fans, with the days getting longer after all those dark winter rides, just a hint of Summer coming along, but for me it is Autumn every time.

Having said that, I wasn't actually out enjoying a glorious nippy Autumn morning today. Instead I was closed up in my own little hurt locker on the Kickr for a couple of hours. A bit like last week, today's session on the trainer went pretty well. It was nicely controlled and hit all the targets etc. I got to the end of it still feeling good and strong. It was one of those sessions that make you appreciate the trainer, as opposed to one of those sessions that makes you hate it. Sometimes the line between those two extremes can be quite thin.

Run on the program for this afternoon and it is one of those sessions that I have just got to get out there and do. It is funny the mental games that your head plays. I have found that all day I have been coming up with excuses around this session, but when it boils down to it I think the simple facts are that this session is a hard one and so my brain has been searching for a reason to not do it. I perhaps shouldn't be to hard on my brain though, since I think I haven't been doing myself any favours with this session. Yes it is a tough session, but I think I have been making it tougher on myself with poor pacing. On Sunday I had a 14km run off the bike. Today's session is 5 x 3km efforts. The target pace for the two sessions is very similar. If I can run 14km off the bike, then I should definitely be able to do 5 x 3km efforts at the same pace, without a ride first. I suspect that I have been starting my run session too hard and as a result fading towards the end. Last week the fade out wasn't as bad, but it was still worse than I think I should have. The aim for today is to try and do the session smarter rather than harder. In fact I am hoping that by being smarter I will be able to go both harder and faster. I think being smarter first is the important step here.

Plus if everything falls apart, my motto of some running is better than no running still holds true.