Moral Support

I shall now say a few words about Moral Support. I think this is pretty important. I get some from the Running Crowd at work, and in fairness, plenty from other friends who give words of encouragement, in the office, through facebook, and so on. However, I'd like to acknowledge that people coming with me is a proper treat. I have learned to enjoy some music, but the truth is, I still find running by myself a tad boring, music or not. I still enjoy finding out which music peps me up a little, and which I run a little steadier to, shall we say. And I love the irony of jogging to "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll", my favourite line of which is now "Here's my tailor, he's called Simon, I know it's going to fit".

So anyway, after my couple of short slow(ish) runs, I decided to head out for the rowing lake. I went to recruit the usual suspects, but they refused to come. So I went out alone, AND it was raining. I was impressed, I hope you are too. Furthermore, I remembered to bring spare pants with me. This is a minor detail, but I have been running in the rain before, and sitting in the office all afternoon in wet pants isn't good. I hope I got away without the telltale water mark on my clothing that time, although I can't remember (in all honestly, I assume that because I can't remember, I did get away with it, because the scars of embarrassment tend to stay with me for longer than that). Anyway, that aside, I saw a couple of other known runners on the route, JNCC Richard, and Stuart. In fact, I didn't recognise Stuart until I was about nose to nose with him, because I had rain all over my glasses, and I wasn't expecting to see him. The words "hello" didn't start to form on my lips until well after he'd gone. Fortunately, I was able to relay this to him subsequently by telling Chris later in the office (although in fairness, i have no idea if she passed it on).

I managed to post this run onto Facebook, which seemed to have mightily impressed Erica, who thought that for day one of my running program, 5.33 miles (even on the flat) was a good score. It seemed unnecessarily slow to me. We established that Erica is aiming to finish the half marathon alive, whereas I am aiming to finish it in sub-2 hours. This will entail quite a bit of hard work on my part, because at the moment I'm not feeling I could complete the Great Eastern Run in sub-2 hours, never mind a feckin' great hill like that.

Still, in a spirit of achievement, I went on (apparently) - no, actually, I do remember this - to run 8.12 miles that weekend. I ran up the canal to the Minnellium Bridge (as I like to call it), and back round Stanground. It's a route I'm finding increasingly boring, although this wasn't why I only made it round in 10:51 minute miles. I simply cannot believe that I ran the half marathon in 9.5 - 9 minute miles any more. It seems like an unachievable dream.

By the 23 Jan, I managed to muster some more Moral Support in the office. Actually, I can tell this, just by dint of the fact I was running on the 23rd, as Runkeeper tells me (fortunately not out loud) that the Millenium Bridge run was on the 22 Jan. The only reason I'd have gone running on 23rd would be Dave (yes, you remember, that's Running Dave) insisting on it. This also tallies with me doing 10 min 36 miles, as he also seems to coincide with the pace being kept up. In all honesty, THIS is what I need my colleagues for.