Getting Faster

I’ve got 5 days before the half, and decided to have one more tempo run. I know it won’t have any benefits for the actual race, but I needed a psychological boost more than a physical one. I have gotten faster every week since the marathon, and over the weekend was quite surprised at how much I had improved in only one week. 10 days ago running at 8:00 pace was basically impossible, and on Saturday I managed it without even trying. I must be in better shape than I thought I was.

I won’t be tapering for the half (it’s only a half, after all), but I will take two days off before the run. Today was the last fast run; I did a 2 miles warm-up, then 4 miles at LT tempo (which in my case means a HR of around 170) and 2 miles cool-down. The pace for the speedy part turned out to be 7:05, which is 10 seconds faster per mile than a similar run in the middle of my marathon training a few months ago.

Cian has caused more drama in the meantime. On both Saturday and Sunday I had to mind all 3 children on my own for a few hours. At one stage I spent maybe 5 minutes with the twins, and then started looking for Cian. I found him in the kitchen, just about to raid the cupboard (again!). I pried him away and turned around only to see big black smoke coming out of the toaster. As I turned it off, big flames started to come out of it. Cian was as excited as I was shocked. Once the flames had died down, I found some crepe paper lying around. He must have stuffed some of it into the toaster and turned it on. I don’t even want to think about what could have happened! I feel guilty about it, but don’t really know what I should have done better. I can’t be in more than one place at the same time.

On several less serious occasions, he has raided the kitchen cabinet. After two years of relentless trying, he managed to break the childproof lock, and I haven’t got round to replacing it yet. On one occasion he left a trail of weetabix behind him (at least it meant he was easy to find), and twice he snatched a full packet of porridge and poured it, well, all over the place. There was so much porridge on the floor that he thought he was on the beach!

Oh, and the twins had their 5th birthday party today. The birthday is not until Thursday, but for logistical reasons the party was today. I arrived home at lunchtime to find a massive bouncy castle in the garden. It was nearly as high as the house itself! They had invited 33 kids (33!!!!), and 31 turned up. It was like an invasion. To my immense surprise, the house is still standing, nothing was broken, and every single one seemed to have had a very good time. They got so many presents that they still haven’t opened all of them. Oh wouldn’t it be nice to be so young and excitable again?

25 Apr: 8 miles, 1:03, 7:52 pace (with 4 miles at 7:05 pace)