Just Call Me Mad Dog

Sarah's been giving the Jog Squad girls nick names. I'm flattered, no, really. Well, I can see her reasoning. After all, I'm still suffering from Saturday...

It's hard to know whether I'm in pain because of the speed and technique workshop, the 97 minute run, or the aftermath of Saturday night. Let's just say dancing for five hours on the concrete dancefloor at Sandwiches in a halterneck dress and black high-heeled boots could prove harmful to the training plan! Yes, Hamish and I rather enjoyed Derrick May. God is a DJ, and the Lord was in the house well and truly on Saturday night.

We arrived at around 11.30, early enough to secure a nice seat in the lounge bar and to down a pleasant glass of wine. We hit the dancefloor at around 12.30, and danced until Derrick came on at around 2.30. From then on in, apart from a couple of quick trips out to Piglet, we stayed on that dance floor.

At around 5.45 Mr May showed no signs of stopping, but Hamish and I were seriously running out of gas. It was back to little Piglet, still patiently parked waiting for us outside on Kent Terrace, and home to cook up bacon butties with Rocket Fuel sauce for breakfast. We slept for most of the day, while outside by all accounts the rain poured and the wind blew. When I finally made it out of bed I was certain my knees were a little puffy, and I certainly wasn't going to drag myself out to go for that 20 minute run. I decided 5 hours of dancing more than equaled 20 minutes at an easy pace.

Oh Sarah, it just hit me, and I'm sorry, but it has to be said: Speedy Smurf. You can kick me later...

Hamish and I slept in again on Monday and cooked up apple pancakes, which we smothered in maple syrup and lemon curd, for breakfast. At 3.00 I rugged up warm and headed off to the Terrace for a special preview of the new Les Mills Body Vive routine. About six of the instructors from around the country took us through our paces as we struggled to control our vive balls and played with our Vive bands. Lots of fun, but not really something that will fit into my training programme. However, given that it's aimed at older women and people in rehab, I'm not really the target market. Especially since the physio finally gave me a clean bill of health today. Woohoot!

From the Terrace it was off to Xtreme, for a 35 minute run around the Bays with the squad with four 15 second sprints thrown in. My legs were, it has to be said, absolutely shot. I felt in pain, I felt slow, but I still managed to run five and a half minute kilometres and amped up the pace on the return leg.

I figured that it wouldn't make sense to try to do a lower body workout this week, and that it would also be a good idea to sleep in rather than try to fit in upper body weights before work. I did, however, manage to fit in V's Body Balance class at lunch time. I knew when I knelt down before the start of class that I was in trouble. My quads were screaming at me. It didn't help that V chose a very intense standing strength track. I knew the standing lunges were coming, and I felt every second of the poses as if they were minutes. I even caused V some amusement with my facial expression during the hip openers. Nice to know someone was enjoying themselves...

Given all of that, I fully expected my 40 minute homework run tonight to be pure hell. I had enough sense to know that following it up with RPM would not be smart, so I met up with Sarah at the Terrace instead. Neither of us was feeling particularly inspired when it came to selecting a route, although it seemed wise to try to avoid the gales. Sarah suggested the Kelburn loop, and I wasn't quick enough to come up with an alternative.

Full credit to the speedy smurf, she set a cracking pace up Bowen, then all the way up Glenmore to Kelburn. She got ahead of me, but not as far ahead as she could have done. I pushed myself a lot harder than I otherwise would have done, and certainly harder than an 'easy' pace! However Kelburn seemed to arrive a lot more quickly than it has in the past, and the hill seemed nowhere near as steep. Sarah met me at the Viaduct, and from there it was all downhill, onto Salamanca, and down to the end of the Terrace before turning back to the gym. All up, just a fraction over 40 minutes.

The wind very helpfully pushed us up Bowen, then back down Salamanca again. I enjoyed every footfall on the downhill leg. I wanted to protect my knees, but I was still able to set a fairly rocketing pace whilst keeping an eye on my technique. I have no idea how this turned into such a strong run, but I suspect it was partly due to having Sarah bobbing along just ahead of me on the uphill, and languishing behind me on the down. I also suspect it had something to do with the Cyclops yoghurt I at at 4.00. Two of my best runs now have been fueled on Cyclops. Perhaps it's a miracle training tool, and I'm just now discovering it. Whatever the reason, I'm not going to jinx myself.

I'm going to get up and do an upper body workout tomorrow morning ahead of Jog Squad again tomorrow night. It could all come crashing down on me tomorrow, and tomorrow night's run might be hell.

Now, where's that yoghurt?