Jack: Day 197/365...A New Chapter

Today I went for a nice walk with Vicki around Mugdock Country Park. The park was ace and there was plenty to see. We had a cheeky look at a section of the West Highland Way and discussed potential plans to walk it at some point. The thing that most struck me whilst walking the route was how slowly distance passes when you're not running. It sounds ridiculous but having run 5 kilometres so frequently over the last six months I have completely lost all awareness of how far the distance is when simply walking. A trip that would take twenty minutes to run suddenly takes an hour! 

This evening marked a big step in my running experiences. At 6:00pm I stepped out of my front door and made my way to meet with Bellahouston Harriers for the first time. It has been years since I have run with a club but I decided that if I am going to have a serious crack at this Marathon in May I will need to have some structure to my training. The club meet twice a week but I think I will probably only make the Thursday evening sessions due to coaching my running club at school on a Tuesday. I ran the 1.7miles to the rugby club where they meet and introduced myself to the coaches. I was amazed by the turnout for the session! It was a cold, dark night and yet there must have been at least thirty runners at the club. I was informed that they can expect up to 60 members to some sessions! I filled in some forms and had a chat with the coach before being advised on a group to run with. This evenings session was to be a warm-up jog followed by intervals. 5x5mins with 2min breaks. A short jog back to the start and then I would have my short jog back to the flat.

During the interval sections I felt strong and was able to hold the pace of the front runners which pushed me hard. It was without doubt the hardest that I have trained in a while. Exactly what I needed! I got chatting to a couple of the fellas on the jog home and it turns out that a few of them are running the London Marathon this year and so are currently in training. They have asked if I would like to join them for their long runs which would be ideal! They are all very good runners, one of the guys recorded a 2:49 marathon in September, and would be great to train with in preparation for my Marathon. 

By the time I arrived back at my flat I was exhausted. The combination of a tough evening session, a long lunchtime walk and not a lot of food throughout the day left me feeling drained. Fortunately Vicki had a huge bowl of carbonara waiting for me when I stumbled through the front door and I spent the rest of the evening in a heap on the sofa watching MadMen.

197 by jackarnold87 at Garmin Connect - Details