Week 5: Wednesday - long run

Impromptu comic opera

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So at the end of Monday’s run, Runna decided it wants me to run faster. But! Not today, because Wednesday is long run day and long runs – at least so far – are at conversational pace.

Long run: 12km

It’s early, light, dry, and it’s not a distance I’m unfamiliar with or scared of. Let’s go!

I’d spent a while last night trying to figure out a 12km route. When I started running this distance last October the weather had been better, and I was happy to run the path by the river - but I’ve been down there recently and it’s horrible and muddy and I’m not willing to go there. So, out came Footpath and I tried to find a way to make Guildford be 12km away.

Consequently, the way I start almost every run has now been named the “squiggle-faff”, as I faff around in Farncombe drawing squiggles before allowing myself to then escape the locality and run in far straighter lines.

Felt alright, strong even. Today’s technique for measuring whether I was still in conversational pace was to periodically attempt to say, without a gap:

I am the very model of a modern major general

I might even have tried the next line if I knew it¹.

Succeeded every time, so that’s fine. My squiggle-faff became even more squiggly and faffy because I was caught by the level crossing… twice, meaning I had to out-and-back past the train station while a southbound train went through. Accordingly I finished a bit sooner (geographically) than originally planned.

I didn’t look at my watch a single time after hitting start, but knowing what time it was from my phone plus whereabouts I’d reached, I did eschew Gilbert & Sullivan in Shalford Park, opting instead to say “oh come on, where’s this twelfth kilometre?” and literally as I said the word “kilometre”, my watch beeped to say the workout was complete.

Average page, 5:57/km. That’s conversational pace right there! Fastest kms were the first and last, which feels interesting. The “hilly” bits of Shalford didn’t make any difference to my pace whatsoever.

Here is is on Strava.

Walked to Guildford to buy breakfast and get the train home. Guildford station is so proud of itself.