Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Bumpy Heads And Irritating Pets

Yesterday, I walked into a door frame.

I've been living in that house for 13 years and you would think by now I know my way around it with my eyes closed. Well, I thought the doorway was here when in fact it was 10 inches over there and now I have a cut at the top of my right side which might leave a scar; having said that, after seeing the blood I initially thought it might be worse, never mind that it also hurt like hell.

Oh, and I refute all those nasty rumours that it had been Niamh with a rolling pin. Or the frying pan.

Monday and Tuesday were easy 7 milers, which I have done dozens of times this year. There is nothing remarkable about that - except that I posted "better than baseline" HR data for the first time since 22 June 2016 - exactly 9 months ago! That's how long it took me to recover from the 2 24 hour races I did, plus the overtraining that went with it. The numbers have been improving significantly since January and I've got 3 more months to improve them even further - that's an excellent place to be in at the moment.

However, after that bang to the head I was a bit worried about concussion, not least because it would require some time off. But after a good night's sleep I felt perfectly fine on Wednesday morning so I went ahead with my workout: hills once more.

Two weeks ago I had done 4 climbs in Treanmanagh, last week it was 5, so today there were 6 on the program. The first thing I noticed once I hit the steepest part of the first incline was how easy it felt! That often misleading feeling lasted surprisingly long. It wasn't until the third and final loop that I finally felt like working fairly hard but even then I was still pleased how well this was going.

Not the guilty cat
I think I'll head towards Windy Gap next week, as long as it will be bright enough. The clocks are going back on Sunday after all. By some quirky fate, I might be the one person in the entire country who is looking forward to the time changing the most. The reason is one of our damn cats, which starts meowing very loudly right outside our window at 5 o'clock. Almost! Every!! Damn!!! Morning!!!! I don't know how many hours of sleep I've missed due to that creature, enough to put a serious strain on our once beloved relationship (not that the cat cares). However, with the clocks going forward next week I'm reasonably hopeful that she'll start meowing at 6 o'clock instead - which is when I get up anyway.
20 Mar
7 miles, 54:41, 7:49 pace, HR 141
21 Mar
7 miles, 54:38, 7:48 pace, HR 141
22 Mar
11.5 miles, 1:32:38, 8:03 pace, HR 146
   hill workout

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