A weekend of two halves

Apologies for dropping off the blogosphere recently, but it's very hard to write a blog about running when you're not running. The day after my last post, I developed another heavy cold and a hacking chesty cough, which kept me from pounding the pavements in my usual frequency. While I can run with a cold, coughs are difficult. After a week of coughs and sniffles, I attempted to head out for a mid length easy run as it was a beautiful sunny winters day. I ended up having two massive coughing fits (including one over Kew Bridge that, for a moment, genuinely risked a lung coming up and out of my mouth) and called it short at 7 miles, deciding to leave it a few more days before I risked the streets again.

Two weeks is too long to take easy with a half marathon on the horizon though, so thought I would take my defective lungs out for training again this weekend. Saturday was intended to be a short 4-miler, just to test the waters. This included testing the waters that came out of the sky, as I had to plod round in mist and dank rain for the full route.
But as I approached Ealing Common, I was given a real lift by my Endomondo app. My American virtual coach told me I had completed the preceding mile in 7.5 minutes. I was ecstatic and skipped my way through the rain for the rest of the route, convinced that my enforced rest had actually done me the world of good and, like many a good racehorse, 'I go well fresh'.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I got home and checked the app on my phone, realising that my GPS had somehow 'flown' me over the first half of my route, giving me a false time for the first two miles of the run. Frowny face.

Yesterday, I decided to pick up my training as if I had never left off, and give the GPS a second chance. So I headed out for a nice slow 9 miles, in the mist and the rain, crossing my fingers that I would make it round without losing a lung. It was particularly grim weather for running and it got greyer and greyer as my run went on. I'd decided that I would attempt Kew again, after the previous week's early finish, but somehow Kew is not so pretty and leafy when it's drizzling and thick of fog. I'd also not really thought through fully the geography of the run. I'd allowed for the river, obviously, and planned in the requisite crossing points. What I had forgotten about was the train line, which meant that I had to insert a railway bridge into my run too. Stairs are good training for half marathons, right?

I did have a couple of amusing moments en route though. My American virtual coach, or the Pocket Shouting Lady as I like to call her, caused quite a stir on the homeward stretch. A couple of Sunday afternoon drinkers, who'd clearly been at it since the pub opened 3 hours previously, were outside having a cigarette. Obviously the sight of someone doing exercise when they could be having a pint and a fag was interesting enough, so I'd already caught their attention.
As I approached them, and got ready to cross the road away from them and their cigarette smoke, Pocket Lady decided to shout '6 miles, 1 hour 3 minutes' at top volume. Transatlantic ventroquilism is obviously the sort of thing you don't come across every day in shady pubs in Brentford, and the watching drinkers were positively slackjawed in wonder at my trick. I like to think I may have saved them from further liver damage, by convincing them that they had clearly had enough to drink at that point if they thought that a passing runner's lycra outfit could talk.

The next stage of my route home brought me up against a new runners hazard - girl learning to use roller blades. This is surprisingly hazardous if you are trying to cross a busy road with the roller blade newbie crossing the other way. It's impossible to predict which way her legs are going to go next - a dog on a lead is easier to avoid! As I moved left, her right leg slid towards me. As I switched right, her left leg moved towards me. With every inch of movement, she became more and more hysterical, and so did I. Just for very different reasons.

After spending the next mile laughing at the roller blade performance, I managed to fit in dodging two crazed dogs in the park before heading home to check out the accuracy of technology for the day. Thankfully, GPS is back on track and seemingly, so am I.

This week is race week, with a hilly 10k race planned for Sunday morning, to really test my fitness (and my lungs). I hope the stair training at Kew Station pays off!