The last wee blog had me running through the trees unscathed, but the real question was going to be whether I could sustain that. But before that, remember this wee blog is nominated for the running awards. If you felt you would like to vote it’s under publications and online/ blog. markgallmac – the most irritating runner in Scotland ? VOTE FOR MARKGALLMAC HERE. The playlist for all the tracks on Spotify is HERE.

Back to the running. The aim was to build up gradually, nothing daft and nothing mental. I’ve already come to terms with the fact that there appears to be very little different with my breathing. No obvious improvements. It could change in the next couple of months, it may not. Had a wee easy run on the Saturday morning, then it was off to Blackpool for a few days with Elaine and the boys, a typical October break thing we do. Last year I piled in the runs, but this year was to be different. The focus was to be a bit of fun, and hopefully do dome short runs. We did the fun.

 

Flumes, biscuits, rock, footballers, big desserts, a couple of pints. I’m already a few pounds overweight but I have no plans to race soon so another couple won’t matter. Great fun. Conditions were mad with that there Hurricane thing, but did a couple of prom runs and took out the go pro for the second of them. It doesn’t do the run justice, but part of the run was the mile and a half along the prom as night turns to day with the Tower changing colours, and it was lovely.  Forget about everything else. The video is here, soundtracked by Loyle Carner as I’ve been caning his album recently. Due to copyright it’s therefore not available on some mobile devices, but I can’t be bothered re- doing it 🙂 It’s on your computer though, and it’s almost worth having a camera on your chest like a fake Iron man and expecting to get jumped at any minute.

 

Strava. Now it’s good fun. And I saw there were plenty of segments along the front. I mucked up the South to North pier one as I took a wrong turn at a path. I know. The Markgallmac glorious failure train. I upped the pace from Central to North Pier thinking it would be cool to try and get top 10 out of 1500 people even though not fit. The markgallmac glorious failure train pulled into the station again 🙂 1 second out. Even with a super enhanced nose I couldn’t edge it.

It felt good stretching out the legs though, even if it was only for 3 minutes. Or 3 minutes and 1 bloody second to be fair 😎. Along to the club on the Thursday and a slow 5 miler, so doing what I said I would, building up slowly. Decided to up the pace a little so headed along to Strathclyde parkrun. Hadn’t finished one since June when I was third. Had a drop out after that as I hit a few problems so would be good to get back out there again. Now I haven’t run fast in well over a month so wasn’t going to do anything crazy. I expected to maybe do c.21 mins which is alright but decided to go out and try and run steadily 4 min ks to come in around 20. If it didn’t work out then no bother. The difficult bit is letting people go away at the start but I did that and got into my rhythm, watching Colin McCourt chase after his sub 16. The first k was done in just under 4, perfect. Second k a bit more tricky with more puddles than even Peppa Pig would find comfortable. But just slightly over 4 here, so good enough. Up to the turn in somewhere between 15th and 20th and felt comfortable, despite ever swirling winds. 3k and on target. A wee sub 20 on the cards here unless the legs went, that would be exceptional for me. Round the bend and a mile to go and boom the wind came. And when it comes at Strath it comes. A wee lassie in red ruby slippers was talking to her dug and clicking her heels. 4k and spot on target. In my head I’m thinking “remember 10 seconds”. Strathy is notoriously slightly long and can be 5-10 seconds over your 5k time. Plus parkrun always add 1 second onto your time. Or is it just me? 1k to go and was like running into a wall. My legs were knackered from this prolonged pace that it wasn’t used to as well as the wind. It was tough but I wanted that sub 20. Got over the line after a last k that seemed to go on longer than the X Factor auditions and had finished in 10th place in 19.51.

I will take that. Good marker, good place to start, now if I can up it a little over the next few weeks, stop eating crap, lose a few pounds and train hard then there’s no reason why I can’t be where I want to be at the end of the year for starting my marathon training. So to everyone coming back from sickness/ injury/ whatever, build it up slow, ENJOY getting back into it. I’ve been guilty in the past of hitting the ground running at 100%. Not this time. Irritating aye, but I do learn sometimes.

Build was a single by the Housemartins. The 4th best band in Hull. I loved them. Enjoy.