Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow

I did not want to get out of bed this morning, I wanted to finish the book I am reading. It was cold and wet and I felt tired. However, my current goal is to run every other day throughout April, so I gradually got myself ready until I could no longer delay going out of the door.

Last night I was thinking about how I am going to increase my running speed. I really do want to take part in the Taunton half marathon next year, or at least before I hit 50. I don't mind at all that if I find it possible to run the distance it will be in a fairly slow time, but I don't want to be so far at the back that all spectators have given up on waiting for me to cross the line and gone home.

Ali and I have discussed how we can achieve this and are open to suggestions. Obviously at some point you just have to push yourself and put more effort in but surely with the correct training you can build stamina and sustain the faster speed over distance? Whilst thinking about all this the phrase slow, slow, quick, quick, slow popped into my head therefore today's run was going to follow this pattern.

Lana Del Rey was very obliging and she picked up the tempo perfectly for track 3 and my pace quickened to a very pleasing 5:53 per km, I've no if that's good, it is for me. A slight downhill section helped keep me going through track 4 but I was delighted when track 5 started and I could return to my normal and much slower pace. Unfortunately all the effort for the resulting speed left me feeling very sick and I spent the rest of the 7k round trip feeling dreadfully sick. Unwell to the point of thinking oh heck I feel so bad I don't think I shall be able to make my lunch date today. I soldiered on and managed once more to pick up a little speed for the next 2 faster tracks, although nowhere near my original spurt. I ended up walking 2 very short barely uphill sections and am delighted to say I managed a sprint finish.

I eagerly fired up my Mac, plugged in my ipod and logged into Nike+ to upload the data. I also keep a chart myself and looked back at my times for this given route and was bitterly disappointed to discover that I had taken an extra three minutes to complete the route.

I will try again. I hope that eventually the faster running sections will get longer. Most of all I hope that I don't feel sick.