I had my longest run to date scheduled in for Saturday, an 18 miler which I planned to run with Sui who is an expert distance runner and has offered to help me get through my next few long runs, as I have been finding the going tough.
The plan was to start out running at 8.30am on Saturday, knowing that the run would take about four hours, and Sui was going to visit a friend straight afterwards. On Friday night Pete and I cooked up a massive pasta feast and I was tucked up in bed before 10.30pm, with an early alarm call set to allow time for breakfast. At 6.30am I got up to let the cats out, and peered out into the back garden. It was snowing, and a very very fine layer had started to settle. I got back into bed for an hour, and then a text came from Sui saying the conditions were not looking great for running. I got up and looked, and lo and behold the garden was covered in a thickening layer of snow, which was still falling heavily and which showed no signs of abating. Arse!
So, we had to admit defeat. The only benefit of this was I got back into bed and had a nice lie-in!
This meant that Sunday morning came, and I found myself once again up early in order to get a quick breakfast down me before heading to work to run laps around Green Park on my own. I planned on running 11 laps, which would take me to around 18 miles. The rationale for running around work was that the footpaths are gravel and therefore would not be icy, and also the route is mindless and quiet, meaning I could try to take my mind off the distance by running with music playing (for the first time ever).
When I got to work the temperature gauge on my car was reading -2oC and it was snowing. The first three laps felt a bit of a struggle to warm up (despite three layers of long sleeved tops) and I had to stop once per lap to remove stones from my trainers, but after that I settled into a nice rhythm. I saw a couple of other runners, and some cyclists who were also doing laps in the opposite direction to me (saw them several times, which we laughed about each time they went past and said hi!) but most of all what I saw was snow. Blowing in my face. A lot. I started to struggle around 12 miles in as it began to feel like wading through treacle and so I stopped for a short walk/water break. I put my hands on my thighs to stretch my calves out a bit and realised that my thighs were numb. I literally could not even feel my trousers against my skin I was so cold. I ran for another couple of miles, however after 14 miles I found myself sitting in a bus stop having a gel and a drink, sheltering from the wind and snow, and I had a real wobble. I wanted to cry and I wanted to stop, purely because I was so cold I couldn't face leaving the bus stop! I decided that the best thing for me to do was to run back to the office completing the lap I was on (lap 9 of 11) and then get on the treadmill to run however many miles were left. You know things have to be bad if I am preferring the idea of running on the treadmill to running outside!
So I set off from the bus stop and ran back to my car, picked up my pass and lucozade, and ran all the way into the gym up to the treadmill. I looked at my Garmin and it said 15.48 miles which I was pleasantly surprised about. The treadmill is set up to record distance in kilometres, so I knew I had to run somewhere between 4-5km in order to make the distance up to 18 miles, so off I went. I found the treadmill running hard, and yet I was really really slow somehow. It didn't seem to matter how much effort I put in or how much I upped the speed, the distance didn't seem to be ticking over any quicker! I had to slow to a walk at one point early on so that I could remove two of my three long sleeved tops, but after that I just took it steady until the distance was just under 4km. As I have said before, I struggle with treadmill running partly because I can't stop myself constantly checking the dials, and so I was using music to stop me - I was only allowed to look at the dials each time a song finished. As I got close to 4km, I decided that I would just run until the current song had finished and then stop, which happened to be at 4.04km. It was with some relief that I hit the stop button and stumbled off the treadmill to start gathering my stuff together and head back to the car!
When I got home, I really struggled to walk from my car to the house, and so I didn't even sit down before getting into the hot bath Pete had all ready and waiting for me. What a relief to finally feel the warmth creeping back into my bones!!
I then logged my two separate runs on Fetch, and discovered that I had covered a distance of 17.99 miles in total. I think that's close enough to my 18 mile target, don't you?!!
So, Dear Weather Fairy, as you seem to be taking my weather requests quite literally, and since I have my longest training run of 20 miles to come on Friday, do you think you could do me a favour and dig out that yellow ball I seem to remember seeing in the sky a long time ago?!? Also, if you could hold back on precipitation of any kind, and let the wind die down for a few hours, I would be eternally grateful..........
Yours Sincerely,
The Ice Road Runner.
PS. When my iPhone started playing 'Walking in the Air' from The Snowman on random shuffle last Sunday, I didn't skip it because it seemed so apt. Perhaps this Friday we could have a spot of 'Walking on Sunshine' instead?!
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